DETROIT, July 7 (UPI) -- A former Dearborn, Mich., man tried to use a fake U.S. passport to enter Israel in 2000 to carry out a bombing for Hezbollah, an unsealed indictment alleges.
The indictment, returned in August 2009 but unsealed last week, charged that Faouzi Mohamad Ayoub, 44, used a passport in the name of Frank Mariano Boschi to try to sneak into Israel, the Detroit Free Press reported Thursday.
The indictment was unsealed after the FBI added the man's name and photo to its most-wanted terrorist list, the Free Press said.
The Israeli government arrested Ayoub in June 2002 during a raid in Hebron in the West Bank. Israeli officials said Ayoub was a senior Hezbollah fighter, which he has denied. His current whereabouts are unknown.
In 2004, the Israeli government traded Ayoub and 435 other prisoners in an exchange with Hezbollah for an Israeli businessman and the bodies of three soldiers.
Unclear was why Ayoub was added to the FBI list so long after the 2000 incident, whether he was arrested for that episode, and when and how long he was in Dearborn, the newspaper said.
Ayoub's profile joins 31 other alleged terrorists being hunted by the FBI, The Detroit News reported. The list includes Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden's second-in-command, who took control of al-Qaida after bin Laden's death during a U.S. military raid of his compound in Pakistan in May.
"It's a significant impact that this individual is on the list," said Special Agent Sandra Berchtold, spokeswoman for the FBI's field office in Detroit. "The list has been posted and is accessible internationally."
The Free Press reported government officials said Ayoub was born in Lebanon and immigrated to Canada, where he was recruited by Hezbollah. Canadian news outlets reported he became a citizen in the 1990s.
