New York: A 33-year old man from New York plotting to join Taliban was arrested at John F Kennedy International Airport and slapped with charges of attempting to provide information and support for terror plots against the US soldiers abroad.
The New York man identified as Delowar Mohammed Hossain from Bronx arrested on Friday in a criminal complaint with attempting to provide material support for acts of terrorism, specifically in support of killing US nationals located overseas, AA reports.
Hossain was arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation when he was attempting to board a plane to Thailand.
“As alleged, Hossain planned to travel overseas and join the Taliban in order to kill American soldiers,” the Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Demers said.
According to claims, the criminal complaint filed in the Manhattan federal court stated Hossain had expressed his desire to join the Taliban and fight against American forces in the beginning of fall 2018.
He also attempted to recruit a confidential source of the FBI to travel with him from the United States to Pakistan and then to cross the border into Afghanistan to join the Taliban by taking flights to Thailand first and ultimately joking the Taliban.
Hossain is claimed to have told the source that his purpose was to “fight the American government from there…combined with the Taliban”, and that “I want to kill some…(non-believers) before I die”.
The undercover source said Hossain had also made preparations to fight in Afghanistan, including buying equipment such as walkie-talkies and trekking gear and instructing the source to save money “to buy weapons” after reaching Afghanistan.
US Attorney for the Southern District of New York Geoffrey Berman said Hossain was plotting against the Americans particularly wanted to target members of the US armed forces serving overseas.
Assistant Director-in-Charge of the New York Field Office of the FBI William Sweeney Jr said the “lure of radical ideologies comes from many sources and just because the Taliban may seem like an old and out of vogue extremist group, it should not be underestimated”.
He added that law enforcement authorities took swift action in the case and stopped Hossain from travelling overseas to allegedly support a “deadly organisation and kept him from his alleged plan to kill innocent people”.