A man set himself on fire outside the White House Monday, in the first of two incidents outside the president's residence.
Mohamad Alannsi, a 52-year-old Falls Church resident, was a terrorist informant distressed by his treatment by the FBI, according to The Washington Post.
Hours before his partial self-immolation, the Yemeni immigrant placed several calls to The Post warning that he was about to commit suicide in a public place. On his last call, he said he poured gasoline on himself and would ignite in 10 minutes.
Two minutes later, at 2:05 p.m., he approached the Secret Service, asking to give a letter to President George W. Bush, and when he was turned down, he went to the fence and lit himself on fire, burning 30 percent of his body. Secret Service officers extinguished the fire, according to The Post.
"I can confirm that there was an ignitable liquid present on the scene," said Alan Etter, spokesman for the D.C. Fire and Emergency Medical Services, according to The Washington Times.
Several hours after Alannsi's fire, a man with a dark ponytail in his 20s hopped over the White House fence and was captured on the front lawn by the Secret Service. There was no comment on his situation or his motivation, according to The Times.
Alannsi was apparently distressed with his status as an FBI informant, saying that the bureau prevented him from visiting his cancer-stricken wife in Yemen. The man said he has little money and that the FBI retained his passport so he would testify in a terrorism trial in New York, according to The Post.
Robert Fuller, an FBI agent in contact with Alannsi, said that Alannsi wrote to him, saying, "Why you don't care about my life and my family's life? Once I testify my family will be killed in Yemen, me too I will be dead man," according to The Post.
Fuller described Alannsi as a reliable informant who "contributed, in part, to the arrests of 20 individuals and the seizure of over $1 million," according to The Post. As a result of his information, his family in Yemen was threatened by Islamists.
Alannsi is currently in an unidentified hospital.
