A Beavercreek, Ohio, man who was arrested in 2018 while attempting to travel overseas to join a terrorist group pleaded guilty last month in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio in Dayton.
Iraqi-born United States citizen Naser Almadaoji, 22, pleaded guilty Oct. 29 “to one count of attempting to provide material support – himself, as personnel – to foreign terrorist organizations, namely ISIS and ISIS-K,” a press release said. Almadaoji proposed a plot to start conflict in the United States between anti-government militias and the federal government.
The FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force arrested Almadaoji in 2018 at John Glenn International Airport while he tried to travel to Afghanistan to join ISIS Wilayat Khorasan (ISIS-K), the press release said.
“This is now the second person from the Dayton area held accountable in recent times for trying to join ISIS,” acting U.S. Attorney Vipal Patel said in the press release. “Providing material support in whatever form – personnel, services, funding, or otherwise – to designated foreign terrorist groups simply begets more terror, and every effort will be made to hold accountable those who provide such support.”
ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria) is a radical Sunni Islamic organization that’s regarded as a terrorist group. Its Afghanistan-based branch known as ISIS-K has a goal of restoring an Islamic state (caliphate) in the region, a politics dictionary said.
“The K in ISIS-K stands for Khorasan, the name for an area that historically included parts of what are now the countries of Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran,” the politics dictionary said. “ISIS-K announced its formation in 2015. It is thought to have been established by hard-line former members of the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban (a group that it opposes).”
Media reported in August 2021 that ISIS-K was responsible for attacks during the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan, “including a bombing at the Kabul airport that killed 13 U.S. service members and more than 100 Afghan civilians.”
Almadaoji told someone he thought was an ISIS supporter that he wanted “weapons experts training, planning and executing, hit and run, capturing high-value targets, ways to break into homes and avoid security guards,” the press release said.
Almadaoji faces up to 20 years in prison, the press release said.
