NAIROBI, Kenya, Dec 16- United States Department of Justice on Wednesday announced the unsealing of an indictment charging a Kenyan man identified as Cholo Abdi Abdullah with six counts of terrorism-related offenses arising from his alleged activities as an operative of Al-Shabaab terror group.
The offenses include conspiring to hijack aircraft in order to conduct a 9/11-style attack in the United States.
Abdullah was arrested in July 2019 in the Philippines on local charges, and was subsequently transferred on Dec. 15, 2020 in connection with his deportation from the Philippines to the custody of U.S. law enforcement for prosecution on the charges in the indictment.
The Department of Justice reported that the man was transported from the Phillippines to the United States on Tuesday.
He was expected to be presented Wednesday before Magistrate Judge Robert W. Lehrburger in Manhattan federal court.
The case is assigned to United States District Judge Analisa Torres.
“Today’s announcement shows that foreign terrorist organizations, like al Shabaab, remain determined to plot, plan, and conspire to commit terrorist acts across the globe against the United States, our interests and our foreign partners,” said FBI Assistant Director for Counterterrorism Jill Sanborn.
“Let there be no doubt that the FBI and our law enforcement colleagues, and in this case specifically those in the Philippines and Kenya, will not stop in our mission to hold terrorists accountable for their actions. The charges announced today against Cholo Abdi Abdullah eerily draws parallels to the heinous attacks on this country on September 11, 2001. The FBI, along with our U.S. Government and international partners, will continue to be in lockstep against terrorism and will not allow the safety or security of the public to be threatened – no matter where in the world it may be or whomever is responsible.”
Acting Manhattan U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss said, “As alleged, Cholo Abdi Abdullah, as part of a terrorist plot directed by senior al Shabaab leaders, obtained pilot training in the Philippines in preparation for seeking to hijack a commercial aircraft and crash it into a building in the United States.”
“This chilling callback to the horrific attacks of September 11, 2001, is a stark reminder that terrorist groups like al Shabaab remain committed to killing U.S. citizens and attacking the United States. But we remain even more resolute in our dedication to investigating, preventing, and prosecuting such lethal plots, and will use every tool in our arsenal to stop those who would commit acts of terrorism at home and abroad.”
He attributed the arrest to ” the outstanding investigative work of the New York Joint Terrorism Task Force, and the FBI’s global partnerships with law enforcement agencies around the world, Abdullah’s plot was detected before he could achieve his deadly aspirations, and now he faces federal terrorism charges in a U.S. court.”
FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge William F. Sweeney Jr said, “Nearly 20 years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, there are those who remain determined to conduct terror attacks against United States citizens. Abdullah, we allege, is one of them.”
Abdullah,aged 30, is said to have obtained a pilot’s license overseas, learning how to hijack an aircraft for the purpose of causing a mass-casualty incident within the United States borders.
” Fortunately, the exceptional work by the men and women assigned to the many agencies that comprise the FBI’s New York JTTF have, once again, disrupted a threat to our communities,” FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge said.
“As alleged in the federal indictment against him, Cholo Abdi Abdullah had obtained pilot training and begun plotting a terrorist attack against a target in the United States,” said NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea.
“But the outstanding work of our NYPD detectives and federal agents of the FBI’s New York Joint Terrorism Task Force, along with all of our law enforcement partners, put an end to those plans and ensured that no one would be harmed.”
Abdullah is charged with conspiring to provide and providing material support to Al-Shabaab terror group, conspiring to murder U.S. nationals, conspiring to commit aircraft piracy, conspiring to destroy aircraft, and conspiring to commit acts of terrorism transcending national boundaries.
The 30 year-old faces a maximum sentence of life in prison, and a mandatory minimum sentence of 20 years in prison.
The charges in the Indictment unsealed on Wednesday arise out of a coordinated scheme by the terrorist organization Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahideen, commonly known as “al Shabaab,” to target Americans both at home and abroad.
Al Shabaab, which has sworn allegiance to al Qaeda and serves as al Qaeda’s principal wing in East Africa, is responsible for numerous deadly terrorist attacks, including attacks that have claimed American lives.
Recently, al Shabaab has embarked on a string of terrorist attacks as part of an operation purportedly in response to the United States’ decision to move its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, which the group has dubbed “Operation Jerusalem Will Never be Judaized.”
In particular, these terrorist attacks perpetrated by al Shabaab include an attack on Jan. 15, 2019, at a hotel in Nairobi, which resulted in the deaths of approximately 21 people, including a U.S. national and survivor of al Qaeda’s 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center in New York, New York; a September 30, 2019, attack on a U.S. military facility in Somalia; and a January 5, 2020, attack on another U.S. facility in Kenya, in which three Americans were killed.
This prosecution is being handled by the Office’s Terrorism and International Narcotics Unit. Assistant U.S. Attorneys David W. Denton, Jr., Sidhardha Kamaraju, and Elinor Tarlow are in charge of the prosecution, with assistance from the Counterterrorism Section of the National Security Division.
Assistant Attorney General Demers and Strauss have among other praised the outstanding efforts of the Directorate of Criminal Investigations, the Kenyan Anti-Terrorism Police Unit, the Joint Terrorism Task Force-Kenya, and the Kenyan Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions; and the Philippine National Police, Philippine Department of Justice, the Joint Terrorism Financial Investigations Group – Philippines, and Philippine Bureau of Immigration, for their assistance.
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