Authorities say the Moroccan man accused of trying to stage a suicide bombing at the U.S. Capitol thought America's war on terrorism actually was a war on Muslims and they needed to be ready for battle.

Then, officials say, the 29-year-old unemployed man started preparations of his own, and he thought everything was going according to plan. A man brought him an automatic weapon. He got a suicide vest, scouted out targets and practiced setting off explosives.

On Friday, Amine El Khalifi's goal to detonate the vest at the Capitol ended with his arrest in an FBI sting. U.S. authorities say they'd been monitoring him for nearly a year.

According to an affidavit, undercover operatives - not an al-Qaida representative as he believed - gave him the non-working gun and inert explosive vest.