A man who set himself afire Monday just outside a White House gate worked for the FBI as an informant, the Washington Post reported, and was distraught over his inability to return to Yemen to visit his critically ill wife.
Mohamed Alanssi, 52, arrived at the White House gate just before 2pm Monday with a letter addressed to President George W. Bush. After talking briefly with uniformed Secret Service officers, he pulled a lighter from his pocket and set his clothing ablaze. Although the officers acted quickly to extinguish the flames, emergency medical technicians said he suffered burns on his hands, neck and face.
PHOTO: AP
"I can confirm that there was an ignitable liquid present on the scene," said Alan Etter, a spokesman for the DC Fire and Emergency Medical Services Department. Alanssi was taken to a hospital for treatment of non-life-threatening injuries.
The Post reported that Alanssi, who also used the name Mohamed Alhadrami, had informed the newspaper of his plans early Monday. He told the newspaper by fax and telephone that he was "going to burn my body at unexpected place." He also faxed a letter to an FBI agent in New York who has had contact with him, the Post reported.
Last year, Alanssi was the subject of a Washington Post story describing his role as an informant for the FBI, providing information on terrorist financiers in Yemen.
Alanssi told the Post in recent interviews that he was upset because he could not travel to Yemen to visit his ailing wife, who has stomach cancer. He also said the FBI had not kept promises it made to him to secure his assistance.
The investigation into Monday's incident is being handled jointly by the Secret Service and the US Park Police, which has jurisdiction over Pennsylvania Avenue immediately outside the White House fence.
A Secret Service spokeswoman, said the man "set himself on fire on Pennsylvania Avenue on the north side of the White House complex."
SUPPORT: Elon Musk’s backing for the far-right AfD is also an implicit rebuke of center-right Christian Democratic Union leader Friedrich Merz, who is leading polls German Chancellor Olaf Scholz took a swipe at Elon Musk over his political judgement, escalating a spat between the German government and the world’s richest person. Scholz, speaking to reporters in Berlin on Friday, was asked about a post Musk made on his X platform earlier the same day asserting that only the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party “can save Germany.” “We have freedom of speech, and that also applies to multi-billionaires,” Scholz said alongside Estonian Prime Minister Kristen Michal. “But freedom of speech also means that you can say things that are not right and do not contain
Ukraine’s military intelligence agency and the Pentagon on Monday said that some North Korean troops have been killed during combat against Ukrainian forces in Russia’s Kursk border region. Those are the first reported casualties since the US and Ukraine announced that North Korea had sent 10,000 to 12,000 troops to Russia to help it in the almost three-year war. Ukraine’s military intelligence agency said that about 30 North Korean troops were killed or wounded during a battle with the Ukrainian army at the weekend. The casualties occurred around three villages in Kursk, where Russia has for four months been trying to quash a
FREEDOM NO MORE: Today, protests in Macau are just a memory after Beijing launched measures over the past few years that chilled free speech A decade ago, the elegant cobblestone streets of Macau’s Tap Seac Square were jam-packed with people clamouring for change and government accountability — the high-water mark for the former Portuguese colony’s political awakening. Now as Macau prepares to mark the 25th anniversary of its handover to China tomorrow, the territory’s democracy movement is all but over and the protests of 2014 no more than a memory. “Macau’s civil society is relatively docile and obedient, that’s the truth,” said Au Kam-san (歐錦新), 67, a schoolteacher who became one of Macau’s longest-serving pro-democracy legislators. “But if that were totally true, we wouldn’t
TRUDEAU IN TROUBLE: US president-elect Donald Trump reacted to Chrystia Freeland’s departure, saying: ‘Her behavior was totally toxic, and not at all conducive to making deals Canadian Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland on Monday quit in a surprise move after disagreeing with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau over US president-elect Donald Trump’s tariff threats. The resignation of Freeland, 56, who also stepped down as finance minister, marked the first open dissent against Trudeau from within his Cabinet, and could threaten his hold on power. Liberal leader Trudeau lags 20 points in polls behind his main rival, Conservative Pierre Poilievre, who has tried three times since September to topple the government and force a snap election. “It’s not been an easy day,” Trudeau said at a fundraiser Monday evening, but
RSS