PHOENIX—Three friends from a Phoenix mosque were lighting off fireworks during a New Year’s Eve celebration when authorities say they struck up a conversation about wanting to make pipe bombs.
One week later, militants attacked the offices of satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo in France, and the trio became inspired to carry out an attack of their own, prosecutors say. It culminated with two of the men killed in a shootout outside a Prophet Muhammad cartoon contest in Texas, and the third person arrested last week in Phoenix on charges that he helped orchestrate the attack.
