Pakistani physician who sought to help Islamic State sentenced to 18 years

A Pakistani physician and former Mayo Clinic analysis coordinator who sought to hitch the Islamic State terrorist group to battle in Syria and expressed curiosity in finishing up assaults on U.S. soil was sentenced Friday to 18 years in jail.

Muhammad Masood, 31, pleaded responsible a 12 months in the past to trying to offer materials help to a international terrorist group. Prosecutors mentioned he tried unsuccessfully to journey from the U.S. to Syria through Jordan in 2020, then agreed to fly from Minneapolis to Los Angeles to fulfill up with somebody he thought would assist him journey by cargo ship to IS territory.

But FBI brokers arrested him on the Minneapolis airport on March 19, 2020, after he checked in for his flight.

U.S. District Judge Paul Magnuson handed down his sentence Friday in St. Paul.

Prosecutors mentioned Masood was within the U.S. on a piece visa. They alleged that beginning in January 2020, he made a number of statements to paid informants — whom he believed have been IS members — pledging his allegiance to the group and its chief. Prosecutors additionally mentioned he expressed a need to hold out “lone wolf” assaults within the U.S.

An FBI affidavit mentioned brokers started investigating in 2020 after studying that somebody, later decided to be Masood, had posted messages on an encrypted social media platform indicating an intent to help IS. Masood contacted one of many informants on the platform and mentioned he was a medical physician with a Pakistani passport and wished to journey to Syria, Iraq or northern Iran close to Afghanistan “to fight on the front line as well as help the wounded brothers,” the doc mentioned.

The Mayo Clinic has confirmed that Masood previously labored at its medical heart within the southeastern Minnesota metropolis of Rochester however mentioned he was not employed there when he was arrested.

The Islamic State group took management of huge elements of Iraq and Syria in 2014, and it drew fighters from internationally. The group misplaced its maintain on that territory in 2019. But United Nations specialists mentioned final week that it nonetheless instructions 5,000 to 7,000 members throughout its former stronghold, regardless of current setbacks, and that its fighters pose essentially the most critical terrorist menace in Afghanistan right now.

Minnesota has been a recruiting floor for terrorist teams. Roughly three dozen Minnesotans — largely males from the state’s giant Somali group — have left since 2007 to hitch al-Shabab — al-Qaida’s affiliate in East Africa, which nonetheless controls elements of rural Somalia — or militant teams in Syria together with IS. Several others have been convicted on terrorism-related costs for plotting to hitch or present help to these teams.

Published On:

Aug 26, 2023