The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is marking the 45th anniversary of the creation of its first Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF). Formed in 1980, the first JTTF became a model for law enforcement cooperation across the nation.

The Boston Division of the FBI organized its first JTTF in April 1986. Known as the New England Terrorism Task Force, it was comprised of the FBI, the Boston and Cambridge Police Departments, and the state police departments in Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire and Rhode Island. On September 19, 1997, the Boston Joint Terrorism Task Force split off from the New England Terrorism Task Force and became its own entity. Five years later, on November 7, 2003, the Rhode Island JTTF was established, and shortly after that, the New Hampshire and Maine JTTFs were created. In 2011, FBI Boston opened the nation’s first airport-based JTTF office at Logan International Airport. In total, FBI Boston sponsors five JTTFs in our area of responsibility.

JTTFs gather trained investigators, intelligence analysts, linguists, and tactical experts from federal, state, local, territorial, and tribal law enforcement and intelligence agencies. Task force members share intelligence and investigative leads and respond to threats and incidents.

“Every day, FBI Boston’s Joint Terrorism Task Forces are working fervently to detect, disrupt, and dismantle extremist plots before they happen because in today’s dynamic threat environment, no one agency can do it alone,” said James Crowley, acting special agent in charge of the FBI Boston Division. “All our partners bring their unique skills, perspectives, and expertise to these teams and work with us and our private sector and community partners to keep our communities safe. We thank them for their dedication to this mission.”

The FBI’s JTTF model dates to 1979, when the New York Police Department and the FBI’s New York Field Office created a joint task force to tackle violent bank robberies. They initiated the model in 1980, when terrorist bombings, bomb threats, and other violence plagued the city.

Following the 9/11 attacks, FBI leadership directed all FBI field offices to establish a JTTF. Additionally, the FBI established a National Joint Terrorism Task Force to support the local task forces in June of 2002. The NJTTF at FBI Headquarters enhances communication, coordination, and cooperation from partner agencies.

JTTFs have disrupted dozens of plots in the last four decades, including a plan to attack millennial celebrations in Los Angeles in 2000; a plan to detonate a car bomb in Times Square in New York in 2010; and plans to sow chaos in Baltimore, Maryland, in 2022 and 2023 by destroying energy facilities. 

The FBI Boston Division counts numerous disruptions of its own, including:

• A plot by Tarek Mehanna from Sudbury, Massachusetts to provide material support to terrorists. In 2012, Mehanna was sentenced to 17 years in federal prison following an eight-week trial where he was convicted of conspiracy to provide material support to Al Qaeda, providing material support to terrorists, conspiracy to commit murder in a foreign country, conspiracy to make false statements to the FBI, and two counts of making false statements. According to testimony at trial, Mehanna and his co-conspirators discussed their desire to participate in violent jihad against American interests and their desire to die on the battlefield.
• Rezwan Ferdaus from Ashland, Massachusetts, was sentenced to 17 years in federal prison on November 1, 2012 for plotting an attack on the Pentagon and U.S. Capitol, and for attempting to provide detonation devices to terrorists.
• David Wright, of Everett, Massachusetts, was sentenced to 30 years in prison on September 29, 2020, after a federal jury convicted him of conspiring to murder U.S. citizens, including police, on behalf of the Islamic State of Iraq & Syria (ISIS). Shortly after, Nicholas Rovinski, of Warwick, Rhode Island, was sentenced to 15 years in prison for conspiring with Wright and Usaamah Abdullah Rahim (now deceased) to commit acts of terrorism to support ISIS, specifically, to behead Americans and kill police.
• Alexander Ciccolo, of Adams, Massachusetts, was arrested by FBI Boston’s Western Massachusetts JTTF on July 4, 2015, for plotting to engage in ISIS- inspired terrorist activity. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison after admitting to providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization, attempting to use weapons of mass destruction, felony possession of firearms, and assaulting a nurse during a jail intake process by use of a deadly weapon causing bodily injury.
• Edward McLarnon, of Malden, Massachusetts, was sentenced to 25 years in federal prison on May 16, 2018 for buying explosives and firearms with the intent to murder a federal judge, a former Massachusetts Attorney General, and his ex-wife’s husband.
• Xavier Pelkey, of Waterville, Maine, was arrested by FBI Boston’s Maine JTTF and later admitted to self-radicalizing, pledging loyalty to ISIS, and conspiring with two minors to commit a mass shooting at a mosque in Illinois. He was sentenced to 15 years in federal prison on November 6, 2023.

JTTFs are also among the first responders to arrive at the scenes of horrific violence—whether they are terror-based or not—and lead the investigations of terrorist incidents.

Among the cases Boston’s JTTF has investigated are:

• The 9/11 attacks, given that two of the hijacked flights - American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines 175, both of which were deliberately crashed into the World Trade Center – originated from Logan International Airport in Boston. Additionally, Mohammed Atta, the ringleader of the hijackers, had traveled to Logan Airport via a connecting flight from Portland, Maine.
• Richard Reid attempted to destroy American Airlines Flight 63 as it traveled from Paris to Miami in December 2001. Alert passengers thwarted his attempts to ignite a bomb in his shoe, and the flight was diverted to Logan International Airport where he was taken into custody. In January 2003, Reid was found guilty of terrorism and sentenced to life in prison.
• Two self-radicalized brothers, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, executed the largest terrorist attack on U.S. soil since 9/11 at the finish line of the Boston Marathon. They detonated two powerful explosives, killing three people and injuring more than 500 others.  Days later, on April 18, 2013, the brothers—armed with five IEDs, a Ruger P95 semi-automatic handgun, ammunition, a machete, and a hunting knife—drove their Honda Civic to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) campus, where they shot and killed MIT Police Officer Sean Collier and attempted to steal his service weapon. Following a manhunt that culminated in a shoot-out with police in Watertown, Tamerlan Tsarnaev was killed, and his younger brother Dzhokhar was taken into custody after hiding out in a boat. He was charged with use of a weapon of mass destruction resulting in death and conspiracy along with 29 additional terrorism related charges. Tsarnaev was convicted and formally sentenced to death in June 2015. He is currently appealing that sentence.