Minnesota man faces terror cost for allegedly becoming a member of IS

A Minnesota man who’s accused of becoming a member of the Islamic State group in Syria has been returned to america to face terrorism expenses

MINNEAPOLIS — A Minnesota man who’s accused of becoming a member of the Islamic State group in Syria has been returned to america to face terrorism expenses.

Abdelhamid Al-Madioum made his first court docket look in U.S. District Courtroom in Minnesota on Wednesday. Authorities say he was vacationing along with his household in Morocco in 2015 when he secretly booked a flight to Istanbul, Turkey, after which traveled to Syria. He is charged with offering materials help to a overseas terrorist group.

Al-Madioum was lately in a jail in northern Syria with alleged IS fighters, based on information studies.

A search warrant affidavit unsealed in 2017 says Al-Madioum, who was 18 when he left for Syria, is a local of Morocco and a naturalized U.S. citizen. He started learning pc science at Normandale Neighborhood Faculty in Bloomington in 2014.

In June 2015, Al-Madioum and his household traveled to Morocco for a two-month trip to go to family. However on July 7, 2015, Al-Madioum skipped dinner saying he wasn’t feeling nicely, and the following day, he was gone. He left the whole lot behind aside from his cellphone and passport, based on the search warrant affidavit.

Al-Madioum’s household instructed the FBI that he referred to as them shortly after they returned to the U.S. and stated he was working in a hospital in Mosul, Iraq, which was then beneath IS management. However a member of the FBI’s joint terrorism job drive wrote within the affidavit that new recruits generally misinform family members about their precise places and actions in order to not trigger misery.

The FBI searched Al-Madioum’s dwelling in 2015 and located handwritten notes that indicated he had been planning to go to Syria, together with how he may route cash via numerous accounts, a rehearsed backstory in case he was stopped and various journey concepts if his plans to go to Istanbul had been thwarted. The notes additionally contained a sketch of a picture that seems on a flag related to IS, with the Arabic phrase for “allegiance” written subsequent to it.

Chatting with CBS Information from the Syrian jail in 2019, Al-Madioum stated he was recruited to IS via a Twitter contact and had watched propaganda movies that confirmed IS members serving to Muslims. He stated he by no means fought for the group however had hopes of turning into a health care provider.

“They gave me a clean examine to purchase no matter I wished,” stated Al-Madioum, who claimed to have misplaced his arm in a U.S. airstrike.

Al-Madioum is amongst a number of Minnesotans suspected of leaving the U.S. to affix the Islamic State group. In whole, roughly three dozen individuals have left Minnesota to affix militant teams in Somalia or Syria. In 2016, 9 Minnesota males had been sentenced on federal expenses of conspiring to affix the Islamic State group.

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