A Texas plumber has been suspected of aiding terrorists after it was discovered that Islamic militants in Syria have been using one of his trucks to shoot down an aircraft during a civil war in the Middle East.
The militant group, called the Ansar al-Deen Front, posted a photo of the Ford F-250 to Twitter on Monday, which shows a militant firing the anti-aircraft gun from the bed, according to CBS News. The group is mostly made up of Chechen fighters.
A representative of the Texas City-based plumbing company Mark-1 Plumbing said they sold the truck to the AutoNation dealership in Houston in Oct. 2013, and that they never heard about the truck since.
Mark Oberholtzer, the owner of Mark-1 Plumbing, said this was the only case in which he didn't remove his company logo from old trucks since he expected AutoNation to remove it themselves, The Daily News reported.
"How it ended up in Syria, I'll never know," Oberholtzer said, adding that his company received a thousand calls and faxes by Tuesday about the photo after it was put on Twitter.
"A few of the people are really ugly," he said.
AutoNation said they most likely sold the truck at an auction, and that it passed through different owners before the Syrian group got their hands on it, The Blaze reported.
Trucks are among the castoff vehicles commonly used by the Ansar al-Deen Front and other Islamic fighters in Syria.
Oberholtzer said he never thought a truck for pulling trailers would be used by terrorists, and that he had to take his phone off the hook because of the angry and threatening calls his company received from people all over the U.S., USA Today reported.
"We have a secretary here. She's scared to death," he said. "We all have families. We don't want no problems."
Oberholtzer plans on removing all company logos from vehicles before selling them in the future.
