One of three men, charged with attempting to provide support for the Islamic State of Iraq (ISIL/ISIS) operated a kiosk at Dover Mall for a time while living in the area.
On Wednesday, a criminal complaint was unsealed in federal court in Brooklyn charging Abdurasul Hasanovich Juraboev, Akhror Saidakhmetov, and Abror Habibov with attempt and conspiracy charges. An FBI release and criminal complaint stated that Habibov provided financial assistance.
Habibov, who was identified as operating the kiosk in Dover was arraigned in Jacksonville, FL, where he is believed to have been apprehended. The News Journal reported Habibov lived in Dover for a time.
According to an FBI release, Juraboev first came to the attention of law enforcement in August 2014 after he made a posting on an Uzbek-language website that ” propagates ISIL’s ideology.”
The investigation alleged that Juraboev and Saidakhmetov devised a plan to travel to Turkey and then to Syria for the purpose of waging jihad on behalf of ISIL.
Saidakhmetov, a resident of Brooklyn and a citizen of Kazakhstan, was arrested Wednesday morning at John F. Kennedy International Airport, where he was attempting to board a flight to Istanbul, Turkey.
Juraboev, a resident of Brooklyn and a citizen of Uzbekistan, had previously purchased a plane ticket to travel from New York to Istanbul and was scheduled to leave the United States next month. Habibov, a resident of Brooklyn and a citizen of Uzbekistan, helped fund Saidakhmetov’s efforts to join ISIL, the FBI stated.
According to the criminal complaint, Juraboev said the following in one conversation, with an individual identified as the webmaster for an ISIL website:
“Can you provide me Fatwa to my circumstances? First, I am in the land of infidels. If right now I decide to go to the airport and go anywhere, except for Uzbekistan, they may arrest me. It’s because of what I told them about Obama. “If I contact with someone from the Caliphate, pledge oath, and then if they order me to kill Obama if the order is based on the Quran and Sunnah, if I have what I need, i.e. guns, then for Allah and my intentions, and because he is an enemy of Allah, I will execute Obama”, I said. Even after these words, they left me alone. Why? Because they think I am establishing a Jihadi group, or I belong to such group, Allah knows the best.”
Habibov, according to the criminal complaint, operates kiosks that sell kitchenware and repair mobile phones in retail malls in, among other locations, Jacksonville, FL; Savannah, GA; Philadelphia, PA; and Chesapeake and Virginia Beach, VA. During the fall and winter of 2014, Habibov employed Saidakhmetov at kiosks in Savannah, Philadelphia and Chesapeake, Virginia, according to the complaint.
The ccomplaint, goes into detail on monitored conversations among the three men with Habibov having discussing money to be used to travel to Turkey.
As alleged in the complaint, Juraboev was also ready to engage in terrorism in the United States if ordered to do so by ISIL, and Saidakhmetov intended to commit such an act if unable to travel abroad to join ISIL. In the August 2014 posting on the website that propagates ISIL’s ideology,
Juraboev offered to kill the President of the United States if ordered to do so by ISIL. More recently, Saidakhmetov expressed his intent to buy a machine gun and shoot police officers and FBI agents if thwarted in his plan to join ISIL in Syria, the FBI release stated.
If convicted, each defendant faces a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison.
ISIL has used a sophisticated network of websites and social media in an effort to recruit foreign fighters. The three men came from republics that were once part of the Soviet Union and have majority Muslim populations.
The head of the FBI said on Wednesday that the agency is monitoring activities by those being lured by ISIL in all 50 states. There was no evidence that the three men in question had gained access to weapons.
