An AWOL Muslim American Army private arrested near Fort Hood told investigators that he wanted to attack fellow soldiers at the military base, the police chief in Killeen, Texas, said Thursday.

Pfc. Naser Jason Abdo is expected to face federal charges after his arrest, Chief Dennis Baldwin said. Baldwin said that he knew of no other threats to the area and that Abdo had no accomplices, “as far as I know.”

FBI agents discovered a bevy of potential bomb-making materials in Abdo’s hotel room, FBI spokesman Erik Vasys said. Abdo, 21, refused to deploy to Afghanistan and later went missing from Fort Campbell in Kentucky.

After a tip-off from a local gun shop, Killeen police arrested Abdo at a traffic stop Wednesday, Vasys said.

Fort Hood is the Texas military base where a 2009 shooting spree left 13 people dead. Another Muslim American soldier, Nidal Hasan, has been charged in those killings.

“Thanks to quick action by a Texas gun dealer in alerting local police to a suspicious character, and a prompt and vigorous response by the Killeen Police Department, we may well have averted a repeat of the tragic 2009 radical Islamic terror attack on our nation’s largest military installation,” said Rep. John Carter, R-Texas, the House Army Caucus chairman.

“We now have an example of what works to prevent these type attacks, and as the coming days reveal more details about this attempt, we can determine better ways to thwart similar efforts in the future,” Carter said.

Carter’s office said Killeen gun dealer Guns Galore, the same store used by Hasan to purchase weapons allegedly used in his attack, tipped off police concerning a “suspicious male” who purchased gunpowder, shotgun ammunition, and a magazine for a semiautomatic handgun.

Greg Ebert, a retired police officer who works at Guns Galore, said a young man showed up in the store Tuesday afternoon and browsed for about 20 minutes. He selected six one-pound canisters of smokeless gunpowder, Ebert said.

Then, Ebert said, the man asked the store owner questions about the nature of smokeless powder.

“That is a red flag for me,” Ebert said. “He should know. Why is he buying that much?”

Ebert said the man also picked up one magazine and shotgun shells, and then left in a cab. After discussing the matter at length with the owner, Ebert called police.

The soldier also purchased uniforms with Fort Hood unit patches from a local military surplus store, Carter’s office said, citing police.

After Abdo’s arrest, police searched his hotel room and backpack and found six pounds of smokeless powder, Christmas lights and battery-operated clocks — which were apparently intended to create a timing and triggering device — sugar, shrapnel, a pressure cooker, and shotgun shells that were being dismantled for raw explosives.

The materials were enough to make two bombs, a Department of Defense official told CNN.

In the soldier’s backpack, police also found “Islamic extremist literature,” a .40-calliber pistol and a shopping list of components for a bomb, a law enforcement official said.

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