A Minneapolis, Minnesota, man was arrested and charged earlier this week with attempting to offer materials help to the Islamic State terror group.
Abdisatar Ahmed Hassan is accused of attempting to journey to Somalia to affix the terrorist group on two separate events in December, the Justice Division mentioned in a release Friday.
Mr. Hassan, an ethnic Somali, was born in Kenya to folks from Somalia. He lived in Amarillo, Texas, and moved to Minneapolis in 2023, based on an affidavit from FBI agent Scott Zimmerman, although the doc doesn’t say when Mr. Hassan and his household moved to the USA.
Mr. Hassan mentioned that he was touring to the African nation to see household, though he doesn’t have household in Somalia and was taking his highschool diploma, start certificates and naturalization certificates, the Justice Division mentioned.
The primary set of flights Mr. Hassan tried to take would have introduced him from Minneapolis to Garoowe, Somalia, by means of Chicago and Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. A ticketing agent advised him that, and not using a scan of a passport of somebody in Somalia, he wouldn’t be capable of fly there, and he in the end left the Minneapolis airport, based on the affidavit.
His second try got here after he purchased a Somali visa with flights heading out of the identical set of airports. Although he was in a position to attain Chicago O’Hare Worldwide Airport, he was met there by Customs and Border Safety brokers.
Mr. Hassan advised them that he was going to Somalia to satisfy somebody he claimed was his uncle, Ali Sheick Abdulkadir, however admitted later in his interview with customs brokers that Mr. Abdulkadir was not his uncle and that that they had by no means met, based on the affidavit.
Mr. Hassan additionally didn’t have tickets to return again the opposite path, and advised customs brokers that he didn’t know the way he would pay for passage to Mogadishu, Somalia, and from there to Doha, Qatar, and the U.S. He mentioned he was planning to return again in January.
When pressed by customs brokers about pro-ISIS content material on social media accounts he initially denied having, Mr. Hassan admitted that he was an ISIS supporter who wished all Muslims to stay beneath the rule of a single caliphate.
He ended up lacking his flight to Ethiopia and subsequently flew again to Minneapolis.
Over the course of their investigation into him, the FBI additionally discovered that Mr. Hassan made public posts on social media in help of ISIS and communicated with an account for the “Manjaniq Media Heart” that encourages folks to journey and be part of ISIS.
Mr. Hassan praised New Orleans terrorist attacker Shamsud-Din Jabbar and in addition posted movies of himself driving round with an ISIS flag seen, in addition to one the place he had a visual knife, the Justice Division mentioned.
Mr. Hassan has been charged with one depend of trying to offer materials help and sources to a delegated overseas terrorist group, and has been ordered to remain in custody till a detention listening to at a later date.
