Feds Arrest Would-Be Suicide Bomber Near U.S. Capitol A would-be suicide bomber was arrested Friday, allegedly en route to attack Congress. The man wanted to target the U.S. Capitol Visitors Center, sources told ABC News, and had reached out to obtain a suicide vest. FBI undercover agents apparently provided him with a mock suicide vest and arrested him as he was on his way to his alleged target this morning. The suspect, said to be man of Moroccan descent, has been identified as Amine El Khalifi. The FBI had been monitoring the man for about a year and, in recent weeks, finalized the sting. The man was in possession of a suicide vest at the time of the arrest, sources said, but officials added the explosives were inert. The public was never in danger, law enforcement officials told ABC News. However, officials said, the case is a sobering reminder that there remains a threat of homegrown radicals, so-called lone wolves. "This arrest was the culmination of a lengthy and extensive operation, during which the individual was closely and carefully monitored," said Sgt. Kimberly Schneider of the U.S. Capitol Police, who said the suspect was arrested "in the area" of the Capitol building. The U.S. Capitol Police was intimately involved in the investigation for the duration of the operation. At no time was the public or congressional community in any danger. The suspect was arrested by the FBI and members of the U.S. Capitol Police after a lengthy sting operation. Undercover FBI agents had posed as al Qaeda associates and provided the would-be bomber with the vest. The suspect had allegedly been watched for several months and had indicated that he wanted to launch an attack. "We can confirm that there has been an arrest of a suspect in Washington, D.C., in connection with a terrorism investigation," said Department of Justice spokesman Dean Boyd. "The arrest was the culmination of an undercover operation during which the suspect was closely monitored by law enforcement," Boyd said. Explosives the suspect allegedly sought to use in connection with the plot had been rendered inoperable by law enforcement and posed no threat to the public. Additional information will be forthcoming at the appropriate time. The FBI has carried out a number of undercover terrorism sting operations in the last several years, and this one, federal sources said, was in the same mold as those executed in the past. A number of those would-be terrorists targeted locations in Washington, D.C. For example, in September 2011, Rezwan Ferdaus, a U.S. citizen from Ashland, Mass., and a Northeastern University physics graduate, was nabbed in an elaborate FBI sting after he told undercover officers exactly how he planned to arm "small drone airplanes" with explosives in order to hit the Pentagon and U.S. Capitol building In April 2011, Farooque Ahmed pleaded guilty for his role in conducting surveillance to case Metro stations in Arlington, Va., in what he believed would be an attack on four Metro stations, including the Pentagon station, in a plot to kill military personnel. Ahmed was also arrested in an FBI sting operation.