MINNEAPOLIS — A Minneapolis man who allegedly expressed admiration for the truck attack in New Orleans that killed 14 individuals has been accused of making an attempt to hitch the Islamic State group, federal prosecutors introduced Friday.
Abdisatar Ahmed Hassan, 22, made his first court docket look on a cost of trying to supply materials assist to a overseas terrorist group. He was ordered held with out bail till a detention listening to March 5.
The chief federal defender for Minnesota, Katherian Roe, stated her workplace will signify him however declined to touch upon the case.
The legal grievance in opposition to Hassan, a naturalized U.S. citizen, alleges that he tried twice in December to journey from Minnesota to Somalia to hitch the group however didn’t succeed. It says he claimed he was going to go to household however had none there.
Prosecutors stated the FBI’s investigation established that Hassan expressed public assist for the group in a number of posts on social media and in addition praised Shamsud-Din Jabbar on TikTok over the New Orleans assault.
Investigators say Jabbar, a 42-year-old Texas native and U.S. Military veteran, posted movies professing allegiance to the Islamic State group and an intent to hurt others earlier than he plowed a pickup by means of a crowd of New Yr’s revelers on Bourbon Avenue on Jan. 1. Police fatally shot him throughout an alternate of gunfire on the scene.
Hassan additionally allegedly posted a video final week, of himself driving whereas holding an Islamic State group flag inside his car. The FBI stated it additionally noticed him driving with the flag Wednesday. He was arrested on Thursday.
The charging paperwork additionally say police in New York notified the FBI final Might that Hassan had made social media posts in assist of the Somali group al-Shabab. An affidavit from an agent says investigators noticed al-Shabab and Islamic State group propaganda movies on his TikTok and Fb accounts. It additionally alleges that he exchanged messages with a Fb account that encourages Somali-speaking people to journey and combat on behalf of the Islamic State group.
FBI brokers have been watching when Hassan went to Minneapolis-St. Paul Worldwide Airport on Dec. 13, authorities say. He allegedly tried to verify in for a flight to Somalia however left after an airline worker advised him he lacked required journey paperwork.
He allegedly tried once more Dec. 29. Brokers noticed him board a flight to Chicago, the place Customs and Border Safety officers interviewed him extensively earlier than his scheduled flight to Ethiopia however didn’t detain him. He missed the flight and returned to Minneapolis, the affidavit says.
Hassan is the most recent of several Minnesotans suspected of leaving or making an attempt to depart the U.S. to hitch the Islamic State group in recent times, together with 1000’s of fighters from different nations. In 2016 9 Minnesota males have been sentenced on federal prices of conspiring to hitch the group, and a Minnesotan who really fought for the group in Iraq was sentenced last June to 10 years in jail.
