Ex-National Guard Soldier Charged With Planning ISIS Attack

Mohamed Jalloh was allegedly plotting a Fort Hood-style attack
By Michael Harthorne,  Newser Staff
Posted Jul 5, 2016 4:25 PM CDT
Ex-National Guard Soldier Charged With Planning ISIS Attack
   (Shutterstock)

A former National Guard soldier in Virginia was arrested Sunday and charged with attempting to plan a terrorist attack in the US with the help of ISIS, the AP reports. According to WTVR, 26-year-old Mohamed Jalloh, a US citizen from Sierra Leone, joined the Army National Guard in 2009; he was honorably discharged in 2015. He allegedly quit after hearing a lecture from a radical Muslim cleric. The FBI believes Jalloh first made contact with ISIS during a trip to West Africa in 2015, NBC Washington reports. An investigation into Jalloh started in March after an ISIS member introduced Jalloh to a government informant posing as an ISIS operative. That ISIS member, now dead, was planning an attack in the US and believed Jalloh and the informant would help.

In April, Jalloh allegedly told the informant he was thinking about conducting an attack similar to the one on Fort Hood in 2009, saying he wanted to do a "Nidal Hasan type of thing." Officials say that same month he was asked by ISIS if he wanted to take part in an attack and responded, "I really want to." "Sometimes you just have to take action," NBC quotes Jalloh as allegedly saying during a recorded conversation. In May, officials say Jalloh told the informant he wanted to plan an attack for Ramadan, which ended Tuesday, and tried to send $500 to ISIS. He was seen buying an assault rifle on Saturday (the gun was disabled before it left the store). Jalloh's arrest was the culmination of a three-month sting. He's facing 20 years in prison if convicted. (More ISIS stories.)

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