Feb. 27 (UPI) -- Xuanyu Harry Pang of North Chicago, Ill., on Nov. 5 pleaded guilty to planning an attack on the Naval Station Great Lakes on behalf of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Pang, 38, entered his plea in the U.S. District Court for Northern Illinois, but the court sealed the guilty plea filing until Thursday, the Department of Justice announced in a press release.
Pang pleaded guilty to conspiring and attempting to "willfully injure and destroy national defense material, national defense premises and national defense utilities" in the summer of 2021, according to the DOJ.
The intent behind the planned attack was to "injure, interfere with and obstruct the national defense of the United States," the DOJ release says.
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Court records indicate Pang communicated with an individual in Colombia about the possibility of his participation in an Iranian plan to carry out an attack against the United States in retaliation for the death of IRGC Quds Force Gen. Qasem Soleimani.
U.S. military forces killed Soleimani in 2020 to end his leadership of the Quds Force, which is Iran's unconventional warfare unit and gathers intelligence outside of Iran.
A covert FBI employee posed as an affiliate of the Quds Force and communicated with Pang's contact in Colombia, who put Pang in contact with the FBI employee.
Pang was a U.S. Navy sailor and stationed and residing at the Naval Station Great Lakes at the time.
Pang and the FBI employee used an encrypted messaging app to discuss possible targets for the attack, including Naval Station Great Lakes and other potential targets in the greater Chicago area.
Pang and the contact in Colombia agreed to help the covert FBI employee to carry out the attack in the United States, according to court records.
Pang also met with another undercover FBI employee three times in the fall of 2022 while under the impression that the individual was an associate of the first covert FBI employee.
They met once at the Ogilvie Transportation Center in downtown Chicago and twice at a train station in Lake Bluff, Ill.
Pang shared photos and videos of locations inside Naval Station Great Lakes with the second FBI employee and provided that person with two U.S. military uniforms to enable operatives to enter the base during the planned attack.
Pang also provided the covert FBI employee with a cellphone that could be used as a test for a detonator.
Pang is jailed without bond and faces up to 20 years in prison. He will be sentenced at a later date, the DOJ said.
The FBI Chicago Joint Terrorism Task Force is continuing to investigate the case.
Naval Station Great Lakes was opened in 1911 and is the U.S. Navy's largest training facility and its only boot camp.
The station is located on more than 1,600 acres overlooking Lake Michigan and is home to more than 50 tenant commands and more than 20,000 sailors, marines, soldiers and civilian workers.
