A Rochester, New York, man has been indicted on charges of trying to provide support and resources to the Islamic State militant group and attempting to murder U.S. soldiers, including Shia Muslims and American military personnel returning from the Middle East, the U.S. Justice Department said on Tuesday.
Mufid Elfgeeh, a 30-year-old naturalized citizen from Yemen, was handed down a seven-count indictment by a federal grand jury following an investigation by the FBI's Rochester Joint Terrorism Task Force, a Justice Department statement said.
A year ago, the FBI began investigating Elfgeeh after he started posting a series of tweets expressing support for ISIS, al Qaeda, and other overseas terror groups, according to court documents. In several messages, he urged people to donate money to the groups, with one message encouraging everyone to donate a third of their salary to jihadists, NBC News reported.
Elfgeeh persuaded two people, who were cooperating with the FBI, to travel overseas to fight for the Islamic State beginning last year, and also sent $600 to a person in Yemen so that they could travel to Syria to fight with the militants. Unknown to him, however, the FBI was closely investigating his every move through undercover informants.
"Elfgeeh also plotted to shoot and kill members of the United States military who had returned from Iraq," authorities said. "As part of the plan to kill soldiers, Elfgeeh purchased two handguns equipped with firearm silencers and ammunition from a confidential source."
The FBI made the guns inoperable before the confidential source gave them to the suspect, Voice of America reported.
In May, he was arrested after the confidential source turned out to be an undercover informant working with the FBI. The firearms charges were made public in June, the Justice Department statement said, adding that Elfgeeh was in custody.
"With today's indictment of Mufid Elfgeeh, the government demonstrates that it will use all available tools to disrupt and defeat ISIS," William Hochul, U.S. attorney for the Western District of New York, said in the statement, using an acronym for Islamic State, a Sunni militant group that has seized large areas of Iraq and Syria.
Attorney General Eric Holder said the U.S. will "remain aggressive in identifying and disrupting" those who try to support terror groups that want to harm Americans.
"As this case shows, our agents and prosecutors are using all the investigative tools at our disposal to break up these plots before individuals can put their plans into action. We are focused on breaking up these activities on the front end, before supporters of ISIL can make good on plans to travel to the region or recruit sympathizers to this cause," Holder said.
Meanwhile, the three charges of material support to Islamic State each carry a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison, and the attempted murder charge carries up to a 20-year sentence, according to the Associated Press.
The suspect also faces charges for possession of firearms and silencers.
