In 2009, Oprah Winfrey's Chicago studios and the archetypal "Sears Tower" had been targets of a terrorist-linked bomb plot. Initially undiscovered by the federal authorities, two of the bomb planners were recently seized for unrelated state crimes in various parts of the US.

As said by the authorities or other anonymous sources interviewed by conservative watchdog, Judicial Watch, the Oprah Winfrey bomb plot in 2009 was inspired by militant Islamist's aversion to the US military involvement in the Middle East particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan. The alleged bomb plotters were based in El Paso, Texas.

The bomb planners chose Winfrey's Harpo Studios in Chicago due to her popularity and power while the Sears Tower (renamed Willis Tower) was due to its obvious landmark status, which is as one of world's tallest buildings, NBC Chicago reported.

The Oprah Winfrey bomb plotters were identified as Emad Karakrah and Hector Pedroza Huerta. Based on the Chicago Business report, Karakrah is currently detained in Cook County, Illinois Jail on charges of making false car bomb threat after leading the police on a high-speed pursuit through Chicago with an ISIS flag waving from his car on Aug. 28. While Huerta is an undocumented immigrant currently held in the El Paso County Jail. Huerta was arrested on Aug. 13 in El Paso for driving while intoxicated, a crime he has been already convicted twice.

Other truck-bomb plotters in the 2009 bomb conspiracy are Jaber A. Elbaneh and Adnan Gulshair el Shurkrijumah also known as Javier Robles. The two also belonged to FBI's most wanted terrorists. Meanwhile, it is still indistinct why Karakrah and Huerta are not facing federal conspiracy charges associated with the 2009 Oprah Winfrey bomb plot.

The bomb schemers allegedly planned to use a "U-Haul style trailer" and a "step-van" to deliver bombs made of plastic C-4 explosives and a volatile mixture called Tannerite to the aimed infrastructures. The Tannerite explosive was known to be a binary explosive of ammonium nitrate and aluminum designed to explode by means of a "high-velocity firearms cartridge."

According to sources with knowledge of the investigation, authorities believed the C-4 explosives were obtained from the expansive US Army base, Fort Bliss in El Paso, and the Tannerite was brought into the US from Mexico.

After the 2009 Oprah Winfrey bomb plot, two foiled Chicago bomb plots were orchestrated by undercover FBI agents posing as terrorist co-conspirators. These are the 2010 Wrigley Field backpack bombing attempted by Sami Samir Hassoun; and a 2012 Jeep-bomb attempt by Adel Daoud. The federal authorities also took part in a foiled 2012 Tampa bar and hotel-casino bomb plot by Sami Osmakac.

Although the FBI chose to expose and take credit for the two, foiled Chicago and Tampa bomb plots, the Bureau has never disclosed information on the 2009 Oprah Winfrey bomb plot. It also never explained why it has permitted plotters to suffer in county prisons on lesser charges. While Winfrey has yet to publicly address the alleged bomb scheme in 2009.