Date: Wednesday, 23 November 2016
http://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2016/11/23/west-chester-man-sentenced-terror-plots/94298896/ West Chester man sentenced for terror plots Kevin Grasha November 23, 2016 A West Chester Township man who took direction from an Islamic State operative overseas and planned to kill police officers in an attack on a Cincinnati-area police station was sentenced Wednesday to 20 years in prison. Munir Abdulkader, 22, attended Xavier University for two years, until the spring of 2015. He graduated from Lakota East High School. Abdulkader’s family is originally from Eritrea in eastern Africa. Officials have said he was born there and became a citizen in 2006, although his mother told an interviewer that Abdulkader was born in the United States and has never left the country. She said they moved to West Chester from New York City in 2009. Abdulkader was arrested in May 2015 by the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force, after a controlled purchase of an AK-47-style rifle. He pleaded guilty earlier this year in U.S. District Court in Cincinnati to attempting to kill officers and employees of the United States, a gun charge, and providing support to a foreign terrorist organization. Judge Michael Barrett sentenced him at hearing Wednesday. Officials say Abdulkader used Twitter to post images almost daily of beheadings and support for the Islamic State. He talked about attaining martyrdom. "I love my parents and family," he posted on Twitter, according to court documents. "I don't want to pay them with money after college, rather through the intercession of a (martyr) on that day." Abdulkader initially planned to travel to Syria to join the Islamic State as a fighter, but prosecutors say he backed away when he saw numerous others were being arrested trying to do the same thing. Eventually, court documents say, a prominent overseas member of the terror group directed and helped him plot to kill a military employee and video-record it before attacking a police station in the Cincinnati area. Officials have refused to say which police station was targeted. “The Defendant’s initial support of ISIL was not limited to the spreading of its venomous calls to violence, rather he undertook concrete actions to aid ISIL,” prosecutors said in documents filed in advance of the sentencing. “Specifically, he sought to travel abroad to join ISIL’s murderous gangs, applied for a passport and, in order to partially mask his plotting, instructed that the passport should be delivered to an address other than his own actual residence.” Junaid Hussain, an Islamic State operative heavily involved in the group's recruitment, also told him travel was too risky. Hussain was killed in an air strike about three months after Abdulkader was arrested. A counterterrorism consultant said in a court filing that the FBI's use of a confidential source gave Abdulkader the means to carry out an attack he couldn't have done without the government's involvement. He also said Abdulkader isn't likely to return to terrorist-like activity when released from prison. -- http://www.daytondailynews.com/news/decades-prison-for-local-man-ohio-terror-plot/F0IZkb4l71gYFFO1r958WK/ Decades in prison for local man in Ohio terror plot Ed Richter Staff Writer 1:19 p.m Wednesday, Nov. 23, 2016 News Local man Munir Abdulkader was sentenced to 20 years in prison after being found guilty in a terror plot. A two-hour hearing was held in federal court in Cincinnati Wednesday for the former Lakota Local Schools and Xavier University student. The West Chester Twp. man previously pleaded guilty in March to plotting attacks against a member of the U.S. military and a local police station in support of the Islamic State group. Abdulkader admitted to aiding a foreign terrorist organization, attempting to murder government employees, and possessing a firearm for the purposes of committing a violent crime. United States attorney Benjamin Glassman had recommended that Abdulkader be sentenced to a total of 25 years in prison and remain under supervision for the rest of his life. Abdulkader was arrested May 21, 2015, the same day he purchased an AK-47 assault rifle for $350 from a Mason gun shop. He had spent months identifying his intended victims and “was very excited for the confrontation,” according to a sentencing recommendation filed Nov. 10 by federal prosecutors and obtained by this news outlet. According to prosecutors, he had planned to behead a local soldier — in his correspondence with Islamic State operative Junaid Hussain, he explicitly requested that it be a person who had served in Iraq or Afghanistan — and film that beheading. Then, he planned to attack a local police station with explosives and firearms, prosecutors said. “Throw pipe bombs, engage police officers with firearms and fight to the death,” was Abdulkader’s plan, according to the sentencing memorandum. Abdulkader is a native of Eritrea in East Africa, but he became a citizen of the United States on Sept. 22, 2006. Records indicate he spent several years in southwest Ohio, graduating from Lakota East High School in 2013 and attending Xavier University for about two years. http://www.daytondailynews.com/rf/image_large/Pub/p7/DaytonDailyNews/2016/11/23/Images/newsEngin.16906707_Munir-Abdulkader-Edit-U6STHFMMOY8-681x383.jpg Pictured is Munir Abdulkader, who went by Munir Mohammed when he was a student at Lakota East.
