3 Men in Brooklyn Charged With Supporting Islamic State

New York:

Three Brooklyn men were charged on Wednesday with aiding the Islamic State, the terrorist organization that controls large parts of Iraq and Syria and has been actively recruiting young people from around the world to its fight.

One of the men was arrested at Kennedy International Airport, where he was trying to board a flight to Istanbul and then planned to travel to Syria to join the battle, according to the government.
At least two of the men had threatened to carry out attacks on targets in the United States if they failed in their attempt to travel overseas, according to the government.

"This is real," William J. Bratton, the New York City police commissioner, said at a news conference. "This is the concern about the lone wolf."

The arrests came one week after the authorities in London said they were looking for three teenage girls who left their homes and were suspected of traveling to Syria - part of a growing pattern of people leaving their friends and families in the West and seeking to join the ranks of the jihadis.

Although it is believed that thousands of people from Europe have traveled to Syria in recent months, Bratton said the arrests of the three Brooklyn men represented the first time the authorities had made public a case linking New Yorkers to the effort by the Islamic State to draw people under its banner.

In a speech earlier Wednesday, James B. Comey, the director of the FBI, said the threat posed by sympathizers of the Islamic State was escalating.

"I have homegrown violent extremist investigations in every single state," he said in the speech at a meeting of the National Association of Attorneys General.

The Islamic State, Comey said, "is putting out a siren song through their slick propaganda through social media that goes like this: 'Troubled soul, come to the caliphate, you will live a life of glory, these are the apocalyptic end times, you will find a life of meaning here fighting for our so-called caliphate, and if you can't come, kill somebody where you are.'"

"That is a message that goes out to troubled souls everywhere, resonates with troubled souls - people seeking meaning in some horribly misguided way," he added.

The men charged on Wednesday appeared to fit that mold, according to court documents. They were influenced by videos posted online by the Islamic State, inspired by messages on social media and compelled to act after months of becoming increasingly radicalized.

The court documents show young men driven to travel thousands of miles to the killing fields in the desert even as they clashed at home with family members they considered infidels. One of the young men had his passport taken away by his mother, who had grown concerned about his behavior.

At times, they come across as naive. One of the men said he would need only $400 in Syria because the Islamic State would take care of their needs, according to the complaint. But they were also committed, vowing to shoot police officers if their plans fell through.
The documents also provide one of the most detailed accounts of the logistics involved in recruitment into the group, showing the young men wrestling with how to evade law enforcement, sneak across borders and communicate with members of the Islamic State from afar.

The men arrested were identified as Abdurasul Hasanovich Juraboev, 24; Akhror Saidakhmetov, 19; and Abror Habibov, 30. Juraboev and Saidakhmetov were scheduled to appear Wednesday in US District Court in Brooklyn. Habibov is scheduled to appear in court in Florida.

The federal agents' investigation appears to have started with Juraboev and his online activities, detailed in the court documents.
On August 8, 2014, a person whose Internet protocol address and alias matched those of Juraboev posted to Hilofatnews, an Uzbek-language website supportive of the Islamic State: "I am in USA now but we don't have any arms. But is it possible to commit ourselves as dedicated martyrs anyway while here? What I'm saying is, to shoot Obama and then get shot ourselves, will it do?"
On August 15, federal agents went to Juraboev's Brooklyn home.
He said he believed in the Islamic State's agenda, would like to travel to Syria to fight on its behalf and would harm President Barack Obama if he could, according to court papers.

In an interview with agents at his residence three days later, Juraboev said that Saidakhmetov was a co-worker with similar views on the jihadis. Investigators found that in early August, Saidakhmetov had also posted a message on Hilofatnews celebrating a massacre of Iraqi soldiers by Islamic State fighters.
On August 26, Juraboev emailed with an administrator of a website affiliated with the Islamic State, asking about how to travel overseas now that he was being monitored.

"If right now I decide to go to the airport and go anywhere, except for Uzbekistan, they may arrest me. It's because of what I told them about Obama," he wrote. "What should I do? I need to sneak out of here with extreme caution without being noticed by them."
The administrator of the website is identified as Abu Bakr Bagdodi Halifat Dovlati Islamiya, or "Bagdodi," and the court documents say he is based in Iraq.

In September, Juraboev and Saidakhmetov corresponded about traveling to Turkey and how they might cross the Turkey-Syria border to join the fight, according to the complaint.
At one point, Bagdodi warned the young men that it was difficult to cross the border from Turkey into Syria.

In late September, a paid informer posing as an Islamic State supporter approached Juraboev at a mosque and later that day met Saidakhmetov; all three spoke about traveling to Syria.
Saidakhmetov told the informer that "he had wanted to travel to Syria to wage jihad, but that his mother had feared that he would do so and took his passport so that he could not travel."

The conversations about travel to Syria continued through the fall and winter. Eventually, Juraboev and Saidakhmetov bought tickets to Turkey, the flights scheduled for this month and next month, planning to cross the border to fight for the Islamic State.

Saidakhmetov was an employee of the third defendant, Habibov. Habibov runs kiosks that offer mobile-phone repair services and kitchen equipment at malls in several states. He hired Saidakhmetov in November to work at the kiosks, according to court papers.
Habibov had promised to cover expenses for his trip, Saidakhmetov said in recorded conversations, and helped arrange some of the travel.

Soon after Saidakhmetov bought his ticket, after worrying over receiving the proper travel documents, he told the informer that "if they were detected at the airport, they could kill a police officer and use the officer's gun to shoot other law enforcement officers that arrived on the scene," the court papers say.

Juraboev is a permanent resident of the United States and a citizen of Uzbekistan. Saidakhmetov, also a permanent US. resident, is a citizen of Kazakhstan. Habibov is a citizen of Uzbekistan.

The US attorney for the Eastern District of New York, Loretta E. Lynch, said in a statement that the arrests underscored the continuing threat posed by the Islamic State, both at home and abroad.

"The flow of foreign fighters to Syria represents an evolving threat to our country," said Lynch, whom Obama has nominated to be attorney general.