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War on Jihad

Prosecutors reveal efforts by Islamic State recruiter in Syria to encourage attacks in US

Adam Goldman

By Adam Goldman The Washington Post

Published July 8, 2016

Prosecutors reveal efforts by Islamic State recruiter in Syria to encourage attacks in US

Federal prosecutors on Thursday said a top Islamic State recruiter in Syria was involved in directing an American college student to kill a member of the U.S. military and then attack a police station in southern Ohio.


Munir Abdulkader, 21, of West Chester, Ohio, communicated with Junaid Hussein, a well-known Islamic State operative who was killed in Raqqa, Syria, in an August 2015 drone strike, according to court documents unsealed Thursday.


Abdulkader was charged secretly in May 2015 with providing material support to the Islamic State, attempting to kill police officers and employees of the United States, and possession of a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence.


He pleaded guilty in March to all three charges and awaits sentencing. He faces up to 40 years in prison. His lawyer did not return a message seeking comment.


Prosecutors said Abdulkader, who attended college in Cincinnati and is of Eritrean descent, began expressing support for the Islamic State on Twitter in 2014. He claimed a cousin had died fighting for the Islamic State and expressed a desire to attain martyrdom, according to the court documents.


Abdulkader obtained a passport and told a confidential FBI source that he wanted to travel to Syria, according to the court documents, but delayed his plans for fear of getting caught.


In May 2015, he started communicating with Hussein who encouraged him to mount an attack in the United States. Abdulkader talked about abducting a member of the military and then filming his execution, prosecutors said.


Prosecutors said he planned to assault a police station using firearms and Molotov cocktails. Court documents indicate he surveilled the police station, attended a shooting range, where he learned to fire different weapons, and bought an AK-47 rifle for $300.


After buying the rifle, authorities said Abdulkader was arrested later that May but details about his case remained secret.


This is the second time in recent months that prosecutors have acknowledged that Hussein urged an American to launch a terrorist attack on U.S. soil.


In April, prosecutors disclosed that Hussein instructed a Boston-area man named Usaamah Abdullah Rahim to kill Pamela Geller, the organizer of a controversial prophet Muhammad cartoon drawing contest in Texas last year.


Rahim, 26, was shot and killed in June 2015 in Roslindale, Massachusetts, after he attacked members of an FBI-led surveillance team while wielding a large knife. Two of his friends were later arrested on charges of plotting a terror operation.


Abdulkader, who became a U.S. citizen in 2006, is the fourth person from Ohio to be charged in connection with the Islamic State.

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