New York Man Pleads Guilty To Supporting and Trying To Join ISIS

A New York has pleaded guilty in Federal Court to helping ISIS, according to the US attorney for the Eastern District of New York.

Parveg Ahmed, a Muslim man, plead guilty before Judge Ann Donnelly on June 20 to one count of attempting to provide material support to ISIS.

“I tried to travel to a land controlled by an organization which the US government has deemed a Foreign Terrorist Organization,” Ahmed told the court. “I knew it was deemed a Foreign Terrorist Organization. That’s my crime, traveling there.”

In June 2017, Ahmed traveled to Saudi Arabia to celebrate Ramadan, where he then tried to travel to Syria with the intent of joining ISIS. On his way to Syria, Ahmed was detained in the Middle East and was then deported back to the United States two months later. Despite knowing that Ahmed had plans to join ISIS, he was allowed to board a plane back to John F. Kennedy Airport, where he was arrested when he landed in August.

The Joint Terrorism Task Force obtained a search warrant for Ahmed’s personal computer on July 17, 2017. After obtaining a warrant, agents found ISIS propaganda and terrorist recordings of Anwar al-Awalaki, the leader of Al Qaeda on his laptop.

One of Anwar al-Awalaki’s recordings that was found on Ahmed’s laptop was from a sermon in which the terror leader said, “Jihad must continue and fighting must go on until the Final Hour comes. Fighting is only increasing as prescribed by Allah — now it is time to carry the battle to further lands outside of Arab countries.”

According to terror task force agents, Ahmed was also researching ways to erase data on his laptop the day he left for Saudi Arabia. His computer also contained manuals about Jihad, how to join ISIS, and lectures that justified violence and terror against non-believers of Islam in Western countries.

Ahmed will be sentenced in December and is facing up to 20 years in prison.

On Halloween of 2017, an ISIS terrorist who was driving for Uber mowed down a group of pedestrians in a bike lane in Manhattan, New York, killing eight people in an attack he said he carried out for the Islamic State.

In April of 2018, ISIS‘s propaganda wing, the Wafa Media Foundation, released a propaganda poster in which they threatened to blow up the Brooklyn Bridge subway station in New York City.

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