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| Autistic 16 year old made extreme posts online, attracting the interest of the FBI, which dedicated four undercover agents into grooming him into supporting ISIS. When he turned 18 they arrested him | |||||
| 2024-01-12 | |||||
[TheIntercept] Four FBI agents posing as ISIS members began chatting online with Humzah Mashkoor when he was 16 years old. He was arrested on terrorism charges weeks after his 18th birthday.
Mashkoor had gone to the airport on December 18 to fly to Dubai, and from there to either Syria or Afghanistan, as part of his alleged plot to join the Islamic State. The trip had been spurred by over a year of online exchanges starting when Mashkoor was 16 years old with four people he believed were members of ISIS. According to the Justice Department’s criminal complaint, the four were actually undercover FBI agents. As a result of his conversations with the FBI, Mashkoor could face a lengthy sentence for attempting to provide material support to a terrorist organization. At an initial court hearing, family members said that Mashkoor, who had turned 18 just a few weeks prior to the arrest, had intellectual difficulties and been diagnosed with autism. Despite acknowledging Mashkoor’s family support and his young age, the judge ordered that he be detained while awaiting trial. “It’s not lost on this court that Mr. Mashkoor is a young man with possible mental illness and the diagnosis of high-functioning autism. It is clear he has a sea of familial support,” the judge said. “But based on this evidence, there’s no reasonable assurance here that the court can simply chalk all this up to the defendant simply being a young man.” Law enforcement agents first became aware of Mashkoor’s online activities in support of ISIS in November 2021. But instead of alerting his family, Mashkoor’s lawyers told The Intercept, FBI agents posing as ISIS members befriended him a year later and strung him along until he became a legal adult. “It is appalling that the government never once reached out to his parents, even while they were sending undercover agents to befriend him online starting when he was 16 years old,” said Joshua Herman, a defense attorney representing Mashkoor. “Almost all of the conduct he is alleged to have committed took place when he was a juvenile.” More details may emerge on the circumstances of Mashkoor’s ill-fated attempt to join ISIS, but the facts as laid out in the complaint are hallmarks of terrorism prosecutions based on FBI stings: a young man with developmental disabilities, already on the police’s radar due to mental health episodes and conflicts with family, groomed as a minor over a long period by a group of undercover FBI agents. Mashkoor’s case also follows a pattern of FBI sting operations in which a teenager is arrested shortly after their 18th birthday. As in similar cases, the court documents suggest that Mashkoor was limited in his ability to execute a terrorist plot on his own.
Mashkoor first came onto the authorities’ radar for social media posts around the time of his 16th birthday. According to the complaint, Mashkoor began posting in support of terrorism in November 2021, and a platform he used alerted the FBI of suspicious activity.
That agent eventually introduced Mashkoor to three other FBI agents impersonating ISIS members. With their encouragement, Mashkoor developed a plan to support the terror group. Along with extensive discussions of what types of services he might provide ISIS, Mashkoor regularly confided in the agents about his boredom, family problems, hopes of getting married, and struggles with his mental health. He constantly referred to being a minor, complaining that being under 18 and subject to the monitoring of family members made it hard for him to travel or send funds, including cryptocurrency transactions that he could not figure out how to conduct. Mashkoor’s anxieties come through in the chats included in the indictment — most of which are limited to his sides of the conversations. At one point, he told an agent that he was considering finding a wife who might be willing to join him in Afghanistan, but he worried about the possibility of abandoning her if he was killed. Mashkoor also went back and forth about whether he even wanted to join ISIS. Throughout the chats with the undercover agents, Mashkoor expressed support for ISIS and fantasized about fighting with militants abroad. But he also shared doubts about joining the group as well as concerns that he lacked connections of his own in Afghanistan and Syria. In one message, he worried that “the brothers there might not support me in getting married and may just strap something on me and throw me out into the field.” He may, he suggested at one point, instead get a job and finish high school. Throughout the period that he was under investigation, it’s unclear how much meaningful contact Mashkoor had with actual members of ISIS. When he originally came onto law enforcement’s radar, he was alleged to have been in communication with other supporters of the group, some of whom were later arrested in foreign countries. At one point during the investigation, he gave an undercover FBI agent contact information for someone he said he had found in an online ISIS publication. That individual, unnamed in court documents, solicited cryptocurrency from the undercover agents and appeared to offer them assurances that it was possible to travel to ISIS territories. In conversations with an agent, Mashkoor also alluded to an ISIS contact who had suggested he conduct an attack in the U.S., but Mashkoor said he preferred to travel abroad.
Colorado man pleads not guilty to aiding the Islamic State group [CourthouseNews] Law enforcement apprehended 18-year-old Humzah Mashkoor at Denver International Airport, on Dec. 19, 2023, believing he was emigrating to fight for an international terrorist group. Mashkoor faces a single charge of "attempting to provide material support or resources to designated foreign terrorist organizations," which has a maximum sentence of 20 years. According to the arrest affidavit, Mashkoor used different email addresses and usernames, to post content online praising IS. To evade detection from algorithms, investigators say he used coded phrases, referring to emigration as a “vacation,” to IS supporters as “brothers,” and even spelling the organization's name with dollar signs as “I$I$.” Mashkoor told an informant that his family had immigrated to the U.S. from Afghanistan, according to the arrest affidavit. In making plans to join IS, Mashkoor obtained travel vaccines and studied how to use cryptocurrency. Investigators say Mashkoor told the informant he hoped to find a wife and to fight for IS, but that he would be willing to die as a martyr or carry out an attack in the U.S. Mashkoor has been diagnosed with functional autism and not graduate from high school. | |||||
| Posted by:Phugum Uluth9531 |
| #6 Fun little film, btw... which most of you probably saw when it came out. New to me, natch. Part of the Lawrence of Arabia comic universe, I believe. |
| Posted by: Pancho Wittlesbach9128 2024-01-12 23:12 |
| #5 Traditional Muslims were fuming That good ol' Mohammedan booming Had gone to the feebs: "Who'd have thunk our young theebs Would depend upon government grooming?" |
| Posted by: Pancho Wittlesbach9128 2024-01-12 22:58 |
| #4 https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2024/01/the_fbi__ the_dog_that_turned_on_its_master.html |
| Posted by: NoMoreBS 2024-01-12 12:48 |
#3  /\ Yes, that appears to be the case. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2024-01-12 10:44 |
| #2 so, the FBI creates an illegal situation and then prosecutes it. Why do we need them? abolish the entire DOJ. |
| Posted by: irish rage boy 2024-01-12 10:26 |
| #1 I thought stalking was a felony. |
| Posted by: Skidmark 2024-01-12 06:32 |