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Steven Emerson,
Executive Director
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March 26, 2015
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National
Guardsman, Cousin Charged With Conspiracy to Support Islamic State
by Abha Shankar • Mar 26, 2015 at
5:51 pm
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Two Chicago-area men were charged Wednesday with conspiring to provide material
support to the terrorist group, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
Hasan Edmonds, a member of the Illinois Army National Guard, was
arrested at the Chicago Midway International Airport just before boarding a
flight to Cairo, Egypt. Edmonds hoped to take the "southern route"
that he was told was the "safest route" from Egypt into Syria to
fight alongside Islamic State forces. Jonas Edmonds, Hasan's cousin, was
arrested in his home in the Chicago suburb Aurora.
According to a criminal complaint, Hasan planned to use his military
training to wage jihad with the Islamic State. Jonas planned to stay in the
U.S. and carry out an armed attack against a U.S. military facility in
northern Illinois where Hasan trained. The cousins planned to use Hasan's
uniforms and knowledge about getting inside the facility.
In conversations with an undercover agent on Facebook, Hasan said it was
his "duty" to support ISIL and die a martyr. He said he
had no desire to continue serving in the U.S. National Guard and preferred
to "struggle and strive hard in the cause of Allah rather than sit
back and live a 'comfortable' life." Hasan also gave advice to the undercover agent on how to
fight the U.S. and its army saying, "In all honesty the best way to be
them is to break their will. With the U.S. no matter how many you kill they
will keep coming unless the soldiers and the american [sic] public no
longer have the will to fight."
When he had trouble getting a passport, Jonas told the undercover agent
he wanted to meet other ISIL supporters in the U.S. if he couldn't get to
Mosul in Iraq to wage jihad. "If I find myself stuck here. I intend to
take advantage of being close to the kuffar [infidel] ... Do you know of
brothers on this side. That are not looking to leave."
The Edmonds cousins "plotted to attack members of our military
within the United States," Assistant Attorney General John Carlin said
in a Justice
Department press release announcing the arrest. "Disturbingly, one
of the defendants currently wears the same uniform of those they allegedly
planned to attack."
Both Edmonds men face a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison and a
$250,000 fine for providing material support to a foreign terrorist
organization.
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