These stories are now routine, daily events. From the LA Times:
A federal jury in Santa Ana convicted two men of conspiring to help Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria, with one of the men trying to board a plane to the Middle East.
Nader Elhuzayel, 25, and Muhanad Badawi, 24, both residents of Anaheim, were convicted after a two-week trial that detailed their efforts to join the terrorist group, including their recorded pledges to “fight for the cause of Allah and to die in the battlefield,” according to court papers…
Amazingly, they both have beards!
The duo were arrested May 21, 2015. Agents from a counter-terrorism task force intercepted and detained Elhuzayel at Los Angeles International Airport before he boarded a plane bound for Israel with a layover in Turkey. Badawi was arrested at an Anaheim gas station.
Agents began monitoring the men after seeing their inflammatory comments on social media. But the scrutiny of the men intensified in April and May 2015 as agents eavesdropped on their phone calls and surveillance teams tracked their movements.
And then there’s the family… always denying:
In a prior interview, Elhuzayel’s mother, Falak, described her son as “a very good kid — not the kind of person who would fit into this kind of category.” The family, she said, is Palestinian and her son was traveling to visit relatives in the West Bank.
She had described her son as “Muslim, but not very religious, just normal.” She had said that her son had become more observant of his religion, including increased attendance at an Anaheim mosque. But she insisted it was impossible that he’d slipped into extremism. He was, she said, “a simple, gullible, nice kid.”
Celebrate Diversity!
