1. Jaelyn Young: raising ‘cubs’ for jihad
On May 13, an undercover Federal Bureau of Investigation official monitoring communications on social media discovered someone making supportive comments about the Islamic State organization.
Further communications revealed that Jaelyn Young, 20, and her fiancé, Mohammad Oda Dakhalla, 22, both of Starkville, Miss., were saving money to travel to Syria to join the Islamic State group.
The FBI brought in a second undercover operative, a woman, to pose on social media as a member of the Islamic State group to further probe Ms. Young’s level of commitment. Both Young and Mr. Dakhlalla are United States citizens.
Young revealed on social media that Dakhlalla’s family and members of their community do not support the Syria-based group. But she and Dakhlalla support the organization and believe that it has established a genuine caliphate that Muslims must support.
She told the FBI operative that she had a talent for math and chemistry and that Dakhlalla had computer science/media skills. She suggested that they could work for the Islamic State in Syria by rendering medical assistance to the injured.
Another FBI undercover operative then made contact with Dakhlalla on social media to confirm his support for the militant group.
In reaching out to the two young Americans, the FBI essentially followed the same approach that real Islamic State recruiters use with social media, befriending potential supporters, building a relationship of trust, and then convincing them to join the group. Except instead of resulting in new recruits arriving in Turkey and crossing the border into Syria, the FBI plan was designed to build a criminal case against the would-be recruits and send them to prison.
An FBI affidavit filed in the Young/Dakhlalla case does not discuss how the two came to form their positive views about the extremist group. But it does suggest that they failed to make contact with an actual recruiter, or at least that any Islamic State recruiter they did make contact with did not believe they were genuine in their desire to join group.
At one point, Young revealed to the FBI that her fiancé “really wants to correct the falsehoods heard here.”
She added: “US has a thick cloud of falsehood and very little truth about [the Islamic State] makes it through and if it does usually the links are deleted (like on youtube and stuff).”
She said Dakhlalla wanted to assure Muslims that the US media was “all lies” in its reporting about the group. She added: “After he sees change in that, he wanted to join the Mujahideen.”
Young and Dakhlalla were married in an Islamic ceremony on June 6.
Three days later, Young told the undercover FBI operative how anxious she was to get to Syria. “I cannot wait to get to [the Islamic State] so I can be amongst my brothers and sisters under the protection of Allah,” she said, “and to raise little [Islamic State] cubs, Allah willing.”
In an important indication of her mind-set, Young commented on the July 17 shooting death of five unarmed US service members in Chattanooga, Tenn., by Muhammad Youssef Abdalazeez.
“What makes me feel better after just watching the news is that an akhi [Muslim brother] carried out an attack against US marines in TN! Alhamdulillah [praise be to God], the number of supporters are growing,” she told the FBI operative, according to court documents.
Initially, the couple was going to fly to Greece, and then make their way to Turkey before crossing into Syria. This was part of a plan to avoid detection by security services. But it took longer than expected to receive passports from the State Department. In the end, they simply booked a flight to Turkey with a stop in Amsterdam.
At each stage of their preparations, the unsuspecting couple kept the FBI operatives fully informed. They were arrested on Aug. 8 at an airport in Columbus, Miss., where the newlyweds were about to board a plane to take them to what they thought would be new and exciting lives in the Islamic State’s caliphate.
Instead, they were led away in handcuffs.
2. Justin Sullivan: ‘U might be a spy’
Justin Sullivan, 19, of Morganton, N.C., knew there was a possibility that the unknown person he was communicating with over the Internet might be an undercover FBI agent.
The person was expressing all the “correct” views in support of the Islamic State and opposing US bombing raids against the group in conversations on June 6 and 7.
But Mr. Sullivan, a recent Muslim convert, had his doubts.
“Just kill a few people so that I know u are truthful.... just shoot them [then] leave... wear a mask, do it at night,” Sullivan suggested, according to a sworn FBI affidavit filed in court.
Then Sullivan asked: “Can u kill?”
The undercover agent responded: “Do you think you can kill?”
Sullivan answered that he was planning to conduct a mass shooting later that month. He estimated the death toll would reach 1,000, according to the affidavit.
“Yes I’m thinking about using biological weapons.... Coat our bullets with cyanide ... and then set off a gas bomb to finish off the rest.... its easy to make,” Sullivan is quoted as saying. “Our attacks need to be as big as possible,” he added. “We can do minor assassinations before the big attack for training.”
Sullivan asked the undercover agent if he knew how to make a silencer to help dampen the sound of a gunshot. The agent said he might be able to construct a homemade suppressor and could send it to Sullivan.
Sullivan expressed concern that he might be arrested trying pick up the shipment. “U might be a spy,” he said, suddenly suspicious of the man with whom he was apparently plotting mass murder. Then he repeated his earlier suggestion: “If u killed someone id know ur truthful.”
As part of its undercover operation, the FBI built a functional silencer and mailed it to Sullivan’s parents’ house, where the young man was living.
The silencer was delivered on June 19. Shortly after Sullivan’s mother picked up the mail and brought the silencer into the house, the FBI arrested Sullivan and searched the house.
The teen told the arresting agents that he didn’t mean the things he had said to the undercover agent and that he never intended to carry out the attacks they’d discussed.
He had allegedly told the undercover agent that he planned to conduct a mass casualty attack between June 21 and June 23. He noted that his parents would be out of town on those days.
Sullivan had also allegedly asked the undercover agent to kill his parents, saying that he would send money and their location.
Sullivan was charged with attempting to provide material support to a foreign terror organization, receipt of a silencer with intent to commit a felony, and receipt and possession of an unregistered silencer.
3. Tairod Pugh: Air Force vet turned ‘Mujahid’
On Jan. 10, Tairod Pugh, a 47-year-old US Air Force veteran from Neptune, N.J., took a commercial flight from Cairo to Istanbul, Turkey.
He told Turkish officials he was there for vacation. They didn’t believe him. He was sent back to Cairo and then deported to the United States. In the process, several items of Pugh’s were seized by authorities, including two backpacks with compasses, a flashlight, a fatigue jacket, and camping clothes. They also seized various electronic devices, including a laptop computer.
After Mr. Pugh’s return to the US, a federal judge issued a search warrant to allow the FBI to examine Pugh’s electronic devices. Although it seemed that someone had tried to damage the laptop with water, forensic specialists were able to recover a letter to Pugh’s Egyptian wife, according to an FBI affidavit filed in the case. They also discovered 180 jihadist propaganda videos, including a video showing prisoners being lined up and shot in the head, one-by-one, by fighters with the Islamic State group.
The FBI also found a chart of crossing points from Turkey into Syria indicating which areas inside Syria were controlled by IS, according to the affidavit.
The letter to Pugh’s wife, Misha, was written in early January. According to the affidavit, the letter says in part: “I am a Mujahid. I am a sword against the oppressor and a shield for the oppressed. I will use the talents and skills given to me by Allah to establish and defend the Islamic States. There is only 2 possible outcomes for me. Victory or Martyr. If Allah gives us Victory we will have a home in Al-sham [Syria]. I will send for you when it is safe. You will have a nice home around believers. If I am made a martyr we will have a mansion of indescribable beauty on a magnificent plot of land.”
Pugh has been charged in a two-count indictment with attempting to join the Islamic State group and with attempting to destroy potential evidence. If convicted, he faces up to 35 years in prison.
4. Asher Khan: Pizza delivery boy or martyr?
In early 2014, Asher Khan of Spring, Texas, came up with a life-changing plan.
Mr. Khan and a friend agreed to meet in Turkey and then cross together into Syria with the assistance of a person who helped facilitate the flow of fighters to the Islamic State organization.
Khan, 20, was living with relatives in Australia at the time. The friend, Abdullah Ali, 20, was in Texas. The friend followed through on the plan and became a fighter in Syria.
Khan made it from Australia to Turkey, but before he could meet his friend, he received an urgent message that his mother was gravely ill. The message was a ruse by his family to trick Khan into returning home to Texas.
It worked.
Khan returned to the family home near Houston in late February 2014.
Later, in October, the FBI began investigating Khan’s friend.
Digging deeper, the agents discovered communications between Ali and Khan discussing their plan to join the Islamic State and to recruit others.
The agents then expanded their investigation to Khan, who since returning to the US was taking college courses and working as a pizza delivery driver.
Khan was also teaching an Islamic program for young people at the local mosque, but his political views had raised suspicions among mosque leaders.
The question for agents was whether Khan had abandoned his extremist beliefs or was simply pretending to hold moderate beliefs.
In studying communications related to Khan’s Facebook page, federal agents identified a young woman whom Khan had known since their freshman year in high school.
The two had engaged in lengthy conversations in early 2014 in which the woman tried repeatedly to talk Khan out of his expressed desire to join the Islamic State group. He told the woman that he felt compelled to travel to Syria because his Muslim “brothers and sisters” were being “raped, tortured, and killed.”
The woman suggested there were other ways he could help them, ways that did not violate federal law.
Then Khan revealed his ultimate reason for wanting to join the Islamic State. “I wanna die a Shaheed [martyr],” he confided.
He said he was “looking forward to dying in Allah’s cause and meeting Allah.”
In a later discussion, Khan revealed to the young woman the apparent source of his desire to fight and die in the cause of Allah. He asked her to watch a video sermon delivered by US-born militant cleric Anwar Al-Awlaki.
“I love him,” Khan said of the preacher. “May Allah give him the highest place in jannah [heaven].”
“I’ve never heard any of his lectures,” the woman replied.
“He has THE BEST LECTURES,” Khan replied. “I wish I could inject everything I know about him into you. And create the same love I have for him in you.”
Those conversations took place in early 2014, before he traveled to Turkey and before he decided to return to the US.
Nonetheless, federal agents arrested Khan in May on charges that he conspired to provide material support to the Islamic State by attempting to travel to Syria to join the group, and by helping a friend from the US successfully join the Islamic State group as a fighter.
Since Khan’s arrest, family members have said the charges against him are unwarranted. While it is true that he considered joining the Islamic State group, he ultimately decided not to do so. He is not a radical, they insist.
Federal officials are taking no chances.
There is no debate about Khan’s friend, Ali. He died fighting on behalf of the Islamic State group in Syria.
5. John T. Booker: the glorious allure of ‘Jihad Joe’
John T. Booker of Topeka, Kan., came to the attention of the FBI as a result of questionable posts on his Facebook page.
Federal agents interviewed the 19-year-old, who candidly admitted that he had an interest in waging jihad, according to court documents.
The admission was highly relevant. Mr. Booker was set to soon report for basic training in the US Army.
Instead of joining the Army, however, Booker got a job at Wal-Mart and continued to attend the Islamic Center of Topeka, where he alienated many members through his strident support for violent extremism. A mosque leader concluded that Booker was suffering from various mental health issues.
According to an FBI affidavit filed in court, Booker became an enthusiastic consumer of Islamic State videos showing grisly scenes of beheadings and bombings.
By October, a confidential source working for the FBI reported that Booker wanted to join the Islamic State group, but he didn’t know anyone who could help him make contact.
The following month, the confidential source told Booker he had a cousin who might be able to help Booker join IS. But Booker would have to prove his devotion to the cause, the affidavit says.
“I will kill any kuffar,” he replied, using the Arabic term for unbeliever. “If I was with [the Islamic State] and they said look, we are going to [attack] the White House right now... I would go with them without any question.”
In February, Booker told the confidential source that he wanted to make an IS propaganda video to “scare this country” and show that the Syria-based group had supporters in America.
In March, the confidential source introduced Booker to a second confidential FBI source who was posing as a sheikh planning terror attacks in the US.
Booker told them that he was inspired by an American Muslim who went to Syria where he drove a truck bomb into a Syrian Army outpost.
Booker called him “Jihad Joe.” His real name was Moner Mohammad Abusalha. His friends called him “Mo.” He grew up in a gated community in Vero Beach, Fla., and attended a local mosque. At some point, his devotion to Islam took a sharp turn to the extreme.
Shortly before his truck bomb attack, Mr. Abusalha recorded a video in which he urged Muslims in the US and other Western countries to travel to Syria.
“The most glorious thing is to die for Allah,” he said, dressed in a military jacket with an AK-47 resting on his shoulder. “Come to jihad. Fight for Allah.”
“The life of a mujahid is an unbelievable life,” he said. “Just sitting down five minutes drinking a cup of tea with a mujahid is better than anything I’ve ever experienced in my life.”
“This is the best life I’ve ever lived,” he said of his time in Syria.
He also delivered a warning to non-Muslims. “You think you are safe where you are in America or Britain or Indonesia or Jordan.... You think you are safe? You are not safe.”
Then he issued a warning to President Obama, Israel, and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad: “I have one word to say to you, kafir [unbeliever]. We are coming for you,” he said.
Booker said Abusalha’s video spoke directly to him. He told the undercover FBI sources that he wanted to carry out a suicide bombing at Fort Riley in Kansas. The military base is the home of the US Army’s 1st Infantry Division.
The FBI then went through the motions of building a bomb in a van that Booker could deliver. The device was, in fact, an inert decoy.
Just like Abusalha, Booker made a video in advance of his attack. After pledging allegiance to Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, he issued his own warning to America.
“Get your kids out. Get your soldiers out of the military. Because, I swear, the Islamic State is coming for them,” he said. “From inside, whether it be in their homes, whether it be on a base like this, whether it be in the recruiting stations, whether it be in the streets.... I swear, we are coming for them and we seek their blood because their blood is [permissible] for us to kill them.”
A month later, he recorded a second video. “This message is for you America. You sit in your homes and you think that this war is just over in Iraq.... I swear, today we will bring the Islamic State straight to your doorstep.”
On April 10, the two FBI operatives met with Booker and explained how to arm the “bomb.” Booker and one of the operatives then drove the device to a gate at the perimeter of Fort Riley, where Booker began to make what he thought would be the final connections to arm the device.
That’s when he was placed under arrest.
Booker is charged with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction, attempting to use an explosive device, and attempting to provide material support to a foreign terror group. If convicted on the first charge he faces up to life in prison.
6. Noelle Velentzas and Asia Siddiqui: Why go abroad?
Noelle Velentzas, 28, and Asia Siddiqui, 31, both of the Queens borough of New York, were arrested in April for allegedly plotting to construct a bomb to carry out a terror attack in the US.
The criminal case is based on statements overheard and recorded by an undercover federal agent. Both defendants are US citizens.
Court documents filed in the case track their research and discussions about which kind of bomb to build. They considered building a car bomb like the one used in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, a fertilizer bomb like the one used in the 1995 attack on the federal building in Oklahoma City, and a pressure cooker bomb like the one used in the 2013 Boston Marathon attack.
After hearing news of the arrest of Air Force veteran Tairod Pugh for allegedly attempting to travel to Syria to join the Islamic State group, Ms. Velentzas told the undercover agent “that she did not understand why people were traveling overseas to wage jihad when there were more opportunities of ‘pleasing Allah’ here in the United States,” according to an FBI affidavit filed in the case.
7. Ali Saleh: desperately seeking a plane to Cairo
Ali Saleh really, really, really wanted to go to the Middle East.
Over the course of a few days in July and August, the 22-year-old Queens resident traveled from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport to airports in Newark, N.J.; Philadelphia; and Indianapolis – all in an attempt to be allowed to board a flight to Cairo. According to an FBI affidavit filed in court, Mr. Saleh told federal agents that he wanted to go to Egypt for tourism, to Saudi Arabia for the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca, and to Yemen to visit relatives. The agents weren’t buying it.
At the same time they had Saleh under physical surveillance, they were also monitoring various Twitter accounts he’d set up. They had noticed that one of his accounts was used to reach out to a suspected facilitator working with the Islamic State group who helped recruits enter Libya, court papers say. The agents suspected Saleh’s real aim was to travel to Libya to become a jihadi fighter.
A month earlier the same Twitter account had retweeted this message: “IS is winning battle of hearts and minds. People have started to realize that war is a necessity.”
The agents noticed that Saleh, a US citizen, had not booked a return flight to the US. In 2014, Saleh reserved a flight from New York to Istanbul allegedly to travel to Syria for jihad. He missed that flight because his parents took away his passport, according to court documents.
Even after his four-airport odyssey this summer, Saleh remained determined to reach his final destination. He decided to take a train from Cleveland to the airport in Toronto.
Federal agents confronted him at the train station and advised him that Canadian officials were unlikely to allow him to cross the US border. Saleh purchased a train ticket to New York and went home to Queens.
One of his Twitter accounts continued to issue tweets and retweets supportive of the Islamic State group and expressing an intent to join the group, according to court documents.
Saleh was arrested on Sept. 17 and charged with attempting to provide material support – himself – to a US-designated terror group.
8. Harlem Suarez: beach bomb plot
Harlem Suarez, 23, of Key West, Fla., is accused of plotting to bury and detonate a backpack bomb on a local beach.
There is no indication in court documents that Mr. Suarez had any contact with a recruiter or an actual member of the Islamic State. There is also no indication that he was a practicing Muslim. Leaders at the local mosque in Key West (the only mosque within 150 miles) told the Monitor they had never seen Suarez until they saw his picture in the newspaper after his arrest.
Based on information in an FBI affidavit, it appears that Suarez became interested in the Islamic State group by watching propaganda videos, including graphic images of prisoners and hostages being beheaded.
According to his lawyer, Richard Della Fera, Suarez is no terrorist; he is a confused young man who became infatuated and obsessed with the brutal military exploits of the IS group as portrayed on social media.
Suarez emigrated to the United States from Cuba with his parents in 2004. He was living with his parents at the time of his arrest on July 28.
Federal agents focused on Suarez after receiving a tip about militant rhetoric on his Facebook page. The charges against him are based on statements he subsequently made to two undercover FBI operatives posing as Islamic State supporters.
In mid-May, Suarez sought to make an Islamic State recruitment video.
He dictated the narration to the undercover FBI operative. He said in part: “I call to other brothers worldwide to create [a] Caliphate in the Middle East. Destroy our enemies against us. Let live only [those] who are our brothers and sisters. Send our mujahideen to a different soil [beyond the Mideast] with tanks, missiles, grenades, and other tactical needs. American soil is the past, we will destroy America and divide it in two. We will raise our black flag on top of your White House and any president on duty (cut head).”
Suarez was arrested after taking possession of what the FBI operative told him was a bomb in a backpack. In fact it was an inert device that looked like a bomb. Suarez had provided two packages of nails, a cellphone, the backpack, and $100 for the device.
The young man had suggested that he wanted to bury a bomb on a sandy beach at night and detonate it the next day by remote control.
He is charged in a two-count indictment with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction and attempting to provide material support to a terror organization. If convicted on the bomb charge he faces up to life in prison.
Suarez’s lawyer has said his client has the intellectual capacity of a 14-year-old. “What I have observed is a young man who is very immature for his age,” he said.