Six Minnesota men have been charged with terrorism in a criminal complaint unsealed Monday, the latest Westerners accused of traveling or attempting to travel to Syria to join the self-proclaimed Islamic State.
The six, whom authorities described as friends who met secretly to plan their travels, are accused of conspiracy to provide material support and attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization. The complaint says the men planned to reach Syria by flying to nearby countries from Minneapolis, San Diego or New York City, and lied to federal investigators when they were stopped.
Charged are brothers Mohamed Abdihamid Farah, 21, and Adnan Abdihamid Farah, 19; Abdurahman Yasin Daud, 21; Zacharia Yusuf Abdurahman, 19; Hanad Mustafe Musse, 19; and Guled Ali Omar, 20. All are Somali-Americans, authorities said.
"These were focused men who were intent on joining a terrorist organization," Minnesota U.S. Attorney Andy Luger said at a news conference Monday.
The six were arrested Sunday in Minneapolis and San Diego and are scheduled to make initial appearances in federal court on Monday.
Federal authorities have identified the two men arrested in San Diego as Mohamed Farah and Daud. They are suspected of conspiring to travel to Syria via Mexico to support ISIS. Both allegedly drove from Minneapolis to San Diego to obtain fake passports, according to the criminal complaint.
At their initial court appearance Monday, U.S. Magistrate Judge Karen Crawford ordered them held without bail.
A prosecutor moved for detention on both defendants, alleging they were a danger to the community and were flight risks. A bail hearing was set for Friday in San Diego and an identification/removal hearing was scheduled for April 30.
The mother of Farah brothers told Minnesota Public Radio that the FBI arrived at her house around noon Sunday. One of her sons was arrested at her house; the other was arrested in San Diego, she said.
She told MPR News that more than a dozen FBI agents and police officers searched her house and confiscated a tablet owned by the son arrested in San Diego. She also said she met with four families whose sons were arrested in the operation.
Another Somali woman told MPR News that her son was arrested in Minneapolis around 10 a.m. Sunday, after he returned home from work.
The six men taken into custody are the latest people from Minnesota to be charged in an investigation stretching back months into the recruitment of Westerners by ISIS. Authorities said earlier that a handful of Minnesota residents have traveled to Syria to fight with militants in the past year, and at least one has died.
Three of those charged in the newest complaint — Mohamed Farah, Abdurahman and Musse — were stopped at a New York City airport in November along with 19-year-old Hamza Ahmed, but they were not charged until now.
Ahmed was indicted on charges of lying to the FBI during a terrorism investigation, conspiring to provide material support to ISIS, and attempting to provide material support. He has pleaded not guilty.
Despite being stopped already, Luger said, the three others continued to try to get to Syria to join ISIS "by any means possible."
The complaint describes several interactions some of the men had with Abdi Nur, a Minnesota man charged previously with conspiracy to provide support to a terror organization. The complaint says Nur, "from his locale in Syria, recruits individuals and provides assistance to those who want to leave Minnesota to fight abroad."
The complaint relies in part on material from a confidential informant who had himself conspired to join ISIS before he changed his mind and went to authorities. Some of the informant's conversations with the six men were recorded.
The Minneapolis area is home to the largest concentration of Somali immigrants in the U.S. Since 2007, more than 22 young Somali men have also traveled from Minnesota to Somalia to join the terrorist group al-Shabab.
Omar's older brother, Ahmed Ali Omar, was among those who joined al-Shabab, leaving Minnesota in December 2007, according to the complaint. Ahmed Omar remains a fugitive. It also said when agents went to the younger Omar's house after he was stopped in San Diego in November, another brother, Mohamed Ali Omar, threatened them.
