Posted on June 22, 2016

FBI: Indiana Teen Wanted to Join ISIS, Researched Homeland Terror Targets

Lee Farran, et al., ABC News, June 21, 2016

Federal officials today arrested an 18-year-old Indiana man who the FBI said had researched potential terrorist targets in his home state before attempting to make his way out of the country and eventually join ISIS in Libya.

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The FBI apparently first came across Musleh back in August 2013 when he posted videos on YouTube of the late American al Qaeda cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, a man who is thought to have at least partly inspired a growing number of homegrown jihadists. Officials at Musleh’s high school, “in coordination with the FBI, took steps to dissuade Musleh [from] engaging in radical extremism.”

Apparently, it didn’t take. In September 2014, Musleh purportedly bought a black flag often associated with ISIS online and a few months later posed for photos in front of it. In several online conversations apparently monitored by investigators, Musleh discusses with ISIS sympathizers–and at least one FBI “confidential human source”–his desire to join ISIS and in one part says he pledged his allegiance to the terror group, according to the complaint.

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