Farooque Ahmed, 34, of Ashburn, Virginia was arrested and charged in a three-count indictment. He was apparently attempting to provide bomb making materials to people he believed to be members of the Al Qaeda terrorist group.

Farooque Ahmed was born in Pakistan, but has lived in the United States for some time. He had been taking part in a plan to bomb Metrorail trains in the Washington D.C. area since April 18. The whole operation was a sting put on by authorities to catch potential terrorists. In this case it worked out nicely.

Ahmed’s job, according to authorities, was to supply materials to create bombs as well as advice on how and where the bombings should take place. The whole time, he was helping with the plan, he didn’t realize that the authorities were the ones behind the whole “fake” operation.

If he is convicted of the 3 counts that he has been charged with, Ahmed faces up to 50 years in prison.