Arizona man Abdul Malik Abdul Kareem has been indicted on charges that he attempted to detonate pipe bombs at February's Super Bowl XLIX. Court documents further accuse Kareem, also known as Decarus Thomas, of accessing an ISIS document containing names and addresses of U.S. servicemen and of providing the global terror network with material support.
Earlier this year, Kareem was charged with providing arms to, and conspiring with, Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi, who attacked a Prophet Mohammed cartoon contest in Texas in May. The two men were killed in the attack.
While Kareem's ties with ISIS have not been officially established, significant evidence suggests that he wished to join its ranks. Court documents obtained by CNN detail how he, working with Simpson and Soofi, watched videos "depicting jihadist violence and apparent wartime footage in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East."
The indictment states that "[w]hile watching the videos, Kareem exhorted and encouraged Simpson and Soofi to engage in violent activity in the United States to support [ISIS] and impose retribution for the United States' military actions in the Middle East."
The three had conspired to support ISIS since June 2014. They had drawn up a hit list that included shopping malls, homes of U.S. service members, military bases, the cartoon contest and the Super Bowl, according to The Hill.
In an effort to raise funds to support his terrorist activities, Kareem faked a car injury and filed a false insurance claim, according to the New York Daily News.
Kareem does not appear to have been directly recruited by ISIS but instead sought out the terrorist organization on his own accord. There is no evidence to indicate that he ever travelled to the Middle East to train with radical Islamist groups. Kareem was born in Philadelphia and has been described as mentally unstable and "off-the-charts dangerous," according to the Daily Mail.
