By Jim Forsyth
SAN ANTONIO, July 28 (Reuters) - A U.S. Army soldier was arrested after police found him in a motel room near Fort Hood, Texas, with possible "bomb-making materials," authorities said on Thursday.
FBI Special Agent Eric Vasys said the soldier, who was absent without leave from Fort Campbell, Kentucky, was being held in a jail in the city of Killeen, Texas near Fort Hood, on an unrelated child pornography charge.
He was identified as Naser Jason Abdo, 21, originally from the Dallas area. He disappeared from Fort Campbell over the July 4 weekend, Fort Campbell base spokesman Bob Jenkins said. The spelling of his name was initially given by the FBI as Jason Abdo Nassar.
"Whatever threat Mr. Nassar posed yesterday or up until yesterday has been eliminated and mitigated, and there was nothing to indicate he was acting with anyone else," said FBI agent Vasys, who is based in San Antonio.
He did not elaborate on the apparent threat, or what charges Nassar might face. Vasys said he had no knowledge of any other arrests of soldiers.
Nassar was arrested around 2 p.m. local time on Wednesday after a "concerned citizen" reported that he had firearms and smokeless gunpowder in his motel room in Killeen, Vasys said.
"A search of his motel room revealed that he had some components which could be considered bomb-making materials," Vasys said.
In June, the U.S. military approved Nassar as a conscientious objector to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but that status was put on hold after he was charged with child pornography in Kentucky.
Nassar applied for conscientious objector status in 2010 after he decided Islamic standards would prohibit his service in the U.S. Army in any war, military officials said.
Fort Hood was the scene of a shooting rampage that killed 13 people and wounded 32 others on Nov. 5, 2009. U.S. Army psychiatrist Major Nidal Malik Hasan was charged in the shootings and is expected to face a court martial in March, 2012. (Additional reporting by Tim Ghianni in Nashville; Writing by Karen Brooks; Editing by Greg McCune and Jackie Frank)