A Kenyan man has been found guilty of plotting a terrorist attack in the United States of America similar to the infamous 9/11 attack.
In a statement on Monday, November 4, the U.S. Department of Justice disclosed that Cholo Abdi Abdullah was found guilty on six accounts.
The accounts included conspiring to provide and providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization and conspiring to murder U.S. nationals, commit aircraft piracy, destroy aircraft, and commit transnational acts of terrorism.
“The jury found that Cholo Abdi Abdullah, an operative of the terrorist organization al Shabaab, conspired to murder Americans in a terrorist attack reminiscent of the September 11 attack on our country,” U.S. Attorney General Merrick B. Garland stated.
According to the evidence provided in Abdullah's trial, the convict was an operative for al Shabaab and after training with the terror organisation for several months in Somalia, he participated in a plot to hijack a commercial aircraft and crash it into a building in the U.S.
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The U.S. Department of Justice stated that the 34-year-old also spent months at a flight school in the Philippines working toward a commercial pilot license and researching how to obtain pilot jobs and targets such as the tallest buildings in a major American city.
“Abdullah trained with al Shabaab for months in Somalia to become a deadly terrorist, and then spent months at flight school preparing to hijack a commercial aircraft to crash it into a building in the United States. Abdullah relentlessly pursued his goals and was on the cusp of getting a commercial pilot license while conducting extensive attack planning, such as how to breach an airplane cockpit door," a US. attorney explained.
The U.S. Department of Justice noted that Abdullah conspired to commit the attack on behalf of al Shabaab, which is responsible for numerous deadly terrorist attacks.
The convict was arrested in July 2019 in the Philippines before being transferred to the U.S. and his sentencing has been set for March 10, 2025.
"Abdullah was convicted on six counts: conspiring to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization, for which he faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison; providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization, for which he faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison; conspiring to murder U.S. nationals, for which he faces a maximum penalty of life in prison; conspiring to commit aircraft piracy, for which he faces a mandatory minimum penalty of 20 years in prison and a maximum penalty of life in prison; conspiring to destroy aircraft, for which he faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison; and conspiring to commit acts of terrorism transcending national boundaries, for which he faces a maximum penalty of life in prison," the Justice Department explained.
