Former Navy sailor plotted to attack Chicago’s Naval Station Great Lakes to avenge killing of Qasem Soleimani

Why did Xuanyu Harry Pang want to avenge the death of Soleimani? Was he in it for the money? Was he a convert to Shi’ite Islam? Was he in love with an Iranian woman? The fact that the establishment media reports on this curious incident don’t even attempt to explain his motivation is a symptom of the sorry state of journalism today.

“Former Navy sailor pleads guilty to terrorist plot to attack Naval Station Great Lakes in 2022,” by Todd Feurer, CBS News, February 27, 2025:

A former U.S. Navy sailor has pleaded guilty to a 2022 terrorist plot to attack Naval Station Great Lakes in Chicago’s northern suburbs, allegedly on behalf of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard to avenge the death of an Iranian general assassinated in a U.S. airstrike in 2020.

Xuanyu Harry Pang, 38, pleaded guilty to conspiring to and attempting to willfully injure and destroy national defense material, national defense premises, and national defense utilities, with the intent to injure, interfere with, and obstruct the national defense of the United States.

Pang, a naturalized U.S. citizen born in China, moved to the U.S. in 1998, enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 2022, and was stationed at Naval Station Great Lakes for his training.

He was charged in the alleged terrorist plot under seal in 2022, and pleaded guilty in November in federal court in Chicago. The charges and plea agreement were unsealed on Thursday.

According to the charges, Pang discussed smuggling radioactive polonium into the U.S. to further the plot, took surveillance photos and videos of the outside and inside of Naval Station Great Lakes, and agreed to provide two military uniforms and a cell phone that could be used as a detonator for an explosive device….

According to court records, the FBI began investigating Pang in the summer of 2021, when he communicated with an individual in Colombia about potentially carrying out an attack on the U.S. to avenge the death of Qasem Soleimani, the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force, Iran’s most elite military unit.

Soleimani was assassinated in a U.S. air strike in Iraq in 2020.

An undercover FBI employee, posing as an affiliate of the Quds Force, later contacted the individual in Colombia about conducting an attack, and the individual put the FBI employee in touch with Pang, who at the time was stationed at Naval Station Great Lakes.

Pang later discussed possible targets for the attack with the FBI employee, and shared photos and videos of potential attack sites, including Naval Station Great Lakes. Pang also shared photos of the naval station with the individual from Colombia, who in turn shared them with the undercover FBI employee….