Posted on 08/04/2010 2:16:33 PM PDT by La Lydia
A 26-year-old Chicago man was trying to help finance al-Qaida and hoped to blow himself up in a suicide mission, authorities say. Shaker Masri was arrested Tuesday evening and charged by federal prosecutors on Wednesday with knowingly intending to use a weapon of mass destruction outside the United States. Authorities said Masri told an FBI informant that he planned to go to Somalia and help al-Qaida, and asked the informant for money to help buy guns once they got there. He also told the informant that he hoped to become a martyr by wearing a suicide vest, the criminal complaint states....
Counterterrorism agents said they have been following the Streeterville man for 18 months and arrested him hours before he was scheduled to board a Southwest Airlines flight to Los Angeles and then ultimately head out of the country.
Masri said he is a U.S. citizen who was born in Alabama but raised abroad.
He faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted of each charge and a $250,000 fine, but he told the magistrate he could not afford a lawyer...The charges come five months after a Chicago cab driver was charged with trying to provide funds to al-Qaida.
(Excerpt) Read more at nbcchicago.com ...
"In court papers, Masri explained to the informant about the need to keep a low profile until leaving the United States because of a recent arrest in Virginia of a man who also wanted to travel to Somalia to fight for al-Shabaab, which was designated by the U.S. as a terrorist group in 2008. In the documents, prosecutors said Masri claimed to know the Virginia man but the papers do not include his name."
You know, MoHamHead may have been a bloody savage and a genocidal lunatic, but he was clever.
By allowing some men to take 3 or more wives, in a population where the distribution of male and female is close to 50-50, there are men remaining who will never mate.
Now what are these chumps supposed to do?
JIHAD!!!
That’s right. Die for the advance of MoHamHead’s bloody nightmare ideology and political system masqueraded as a “religion”.
What else is there for a modern, single, never-will-marry MoHamHead to do but to blow himself up and kill a lot of infidels at the same time? Especially Jews!
Damn,
Was certain his name would be Barack H. Obammy.
The ACLU and “Democracy Now!” are no doubt en route to remedy this travesty of justice and bring down those who perpetrated it.
SnakeDoc
Too bad we can't have a make-a-wish program for these guys. It's a darn shame to deprive him of his dream. He could be EOD practice. I bet he'd blow up real good.
Obama is in chicago now isn't he...is it him?
/s
Mad Mo was the head of a pillage based organization. As such, he didn’t have to worry about what an excess supply of (captured) wives would mean to his posterity.
Then it would be Kenyan
Oh great, now not just the Quakers are after us, the Shakers are being resurrected to go after us, too!
August 4, 2010
NOTE The following text SNIPPET is a quote:
http://chicago.fbi.gov/pressrel/pressrel10/cg080410.htm
Chicago Man Arrested for Attempting to Provide Material Support to a Terrorist Organization
A 26-year-old Chicago man, who authorities believed was planning to travel to Somalia and engage in jihadist fighting with a terrorist group, was arrested last night just hours before he was scheduled to leave Chicago, announced Robert D. Grant, Special Agent-in-Charge of the Chicago office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and Patrick J. Fitzgerald, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois.
SHAKER MASRI, who lived in the Streeterville area of Chicago, was arrested late yesterday in Countryside, Illinois, without incident, by members of the Chicago FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) following an 18-month investigation. MASRI was charged in a criminal complaint filed yesterday in U.S. District Court in Chicago with one count each of attempting to provide material support to a designated terrorist organization and attempting to provide material support through the use of a weapon of mass destruction, both of which are felony offenses.
According to the complaint, MASRI, who is a U.S. citizen, began espousing his increasingly violent views to an individual he befriended in early 2009. During the ensuing months, MASRI began to openly express a desire to participate in a “jihad” and to fight against what he characterized as “infidels.”
In the past month, it is alleged that MASRI began to actively plan a trip to Somalia where he hoped to join the specially designated terrorist group al Shabaab and commit a suicide attack targeting “infidels.” He was arrested last night just hours before he was planning to depart Chicago en route to Somalia.
Investigation by the Chicago FBI’s JTTF included the use of undercover operatives and court authorized electronic surveillance of a telephone used by MASRI and resulted in the filing of the charges announced today.
MASRI appeared before Magistrate Judge Geraldine Soat Brown in Chicago, earlier this morning, at which time he was formally charged. MASRI was ordered held without bond pending his next court appearance, which is scheduled for August 9. Until then, MASRI will be housed at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Chicago. If convicted of the charges filed against him, MASRI faces a possible sentence of up to 15 years’ incarceration on each count.
This case was investigated by the Chicago FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF), which is comprised of FBI special agents, officers from the Chicago Police Department, and representatives from 20 federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies.
The public is reminded that a complaint is not evidence of guilt and that all defendants in a criminal case are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/203473.php
August 04, 2010
“Busted: Chicago Man Charged With Aiding al Qaeda (Update: Knew Revolution Muslim’s Zach Chesser)”
............Scroll down for update.............*BUMPED*
SNIPPET: “UPDATE by Rusty: I added the pic and took out the question mark from SH’s post. Of course he knew Zach Chesser. The question is whether he knew “Abu Talhan al Amrekee” in the online sense of the word or if they were buddies in real life. Perhaps it’s a distinction without a difference in the overall scheme of things, but I would like to know what his affiliation is with Revolution Muslim.
He’s in Chicago, and the RM goons are in New York. Except the ones that aren’t. Like Zach.
How many Revolution Muslim associates are now in jail. 5? 6?
Watch your six Jesse “Younes Abdullah” Morton. Watch your six.
Also, here’s the entire FBI press release. SH just sent me a link to the complaint. Will update when I read it.
UPDATE by Rusty: Confirmed, it was Zach Chesser. He says he knows the guy arrested in Virginia. Then, in a footnote in the complaint:
In particular, Masri referred to the individual in question as the “twenty-four year old man” arrested recently while leaving for “Djibouti”. On July 21, 2010, the FBI announced that Zachary Adam Chesser (a/k/a Abu Talhah Al-Amrikee), age twenty, had been arrested in Northern Virginia and charged with attempting to provide material support and resources to a foreign terrorist organization by traveling to Somalia, by way of Uganda, to fight with and on behalf of al-Shabaab ....
Although Masri misidentified Chesser’s age and travel route, he correctly noted the location of his arrest, and stated that the arrestee had been betrayed by his “animal” mother-in-law.
Some other highlights from the affidavit. One wonders what could have been on his computer?
Masri stated that he needed to leave his current laptop computer in the United States because if it was ever searched, he would go to jail.
When asked who they would meet in Somalia?
Masri indicated they would meet al Qaeda.
Yet another update: I’m still reading the affidavit, but this is too funny not to put into this post. Masri has a girl in London that he’s been chatting with online. Just before he wants to go to Somalia, he wants to visit her. But she breaks off their online romance realizing he was about to go off in search of jihad. Here’s the money quote:
She felt that she had been misled by Masri because, in light of his “dream”, it appeared to here the he never intended to build a life with her but, instead, at best, to marry her, get her pregnant, and then “emigrate for the sake of God”.
Ha! The press release is still below the fold.”
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.6956/pub_detail.asp
“Al-Shabaab in Somalia: A Magnet for American Jihadists?”
August 5, 2010 - The Editor
SNIPPET: “Yesterday, news came that a U.S. citizen from Chicago was charged with plotting to go to Somalia to join the Islamist terror group, Al-Shabaab. Twenty-six-year old Shaker Masri was born in Alabama but did not grow up inside America. He returned to the USA when he was 18.
He was arrested on Tuesday evening hours before he was about to board a flight to California, but was intending to continue to Somalia, an FBI official stated. Masri worked for a company that translated Korans into English and distributed them for free. Shaker Masri and had been arrested after being involved in conversations over several weeks with an FBI informant who also worked at the publishing company’s warehouse, which was based in Addison, Illinois. The informant had a “wire” and these allowed their conversations to be recorded.
Masri apparently claimed that he was an admirer of Anwar al-Awlaki the American-born Yemeni terror master who had been an imam at the Dar Al-Hijrah mosque in Virginia, and had advised Fort Hood killer Maj. Nidal Malik Hassan and also the underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.”
http://internet-haganah.com/harchives/006934.html
12 August 2010
“NO LOVE LIKE THE LOVE OF A JIHADI”
SNIPPET: “Cross reference this noxious bit of poetry with what follows it, namely the intercepted phone calls between Shaker Masri - recently arrested in Chicago for trying to join al-Shabbab - and his erstwhile fiance in the UK.”
September 30, 2010
NOTE The following text is a quote:
chicago.fbi.gov/dojpressrel/pressrel10/cg093010.htm
Chicago Man Indicted for Allegedly Attempting to Provide Material Support to a Foreign Terrorist Organization
CHICAGO—A Chicago man who was arrested last month for allegedly planning to travel to Somalia and engage in fighting with a foreign terrorist organization, was indicted on the same charges by a federal grand jury, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, and Robert D. Grant, Special Agent-in-Charge of the Chicago Office of the FBI, announced today.
Shaker Masri, 27, who lived in Chicago’s Gold Coast neighborhood, was indicted on one count of attempting to provide material support to al Shabaab, a designated foreign terrorist organization, and one count of attempting to provide material support by use of a weapon of mass destruction outside the United States. He will be arraigned at a later date in U.S. District Court.
Masri was arrested on Aug. 3 by members of the Chicago FBI’s Joint Terrorism task Force (JTTF), just hours before he was scheduled to leave Chicago en route to Somalia. Since then, he was ordered detained in federal custody without bond.
According to a criminal complaint filed at the time his arrest, Masri, a U.S. citizen, began espousing increasingly violent views to an individual he befriended in early 2009, and later began to openly express a desire to participate in a “jihad” and to fight against what he characterized as “infidels.” During the weeks before his arrest, Masri began to actively plan a trip to Somalia, where he hoped to join the specially designated terrorist group al Shabaab and commit a suicide attack targeting “infidels,” the complaint alleged.
Both counts carry a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. If convicted, the court must impose a reasonable sentence under the advisory United States Sentencing Guidelines.
The public is reminded that an indictment contains only allegations and is not evidence of guilt. The defendant is presumed innocent and is entitled to a fair trail at which the government has the burden of proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
NOTE The following text is a quote:
www.fbi.gov/chicago/press-releases/2012/chicago-man-pleads-guilty-to-planning-travel-to-somalia-to-join-al-shabaab-terrorist-organization-in-jihad-combat
Chicago Man Pleads Guilty to Planning Travel to Somalia to Join al Shabaab Terrorist Organization in Jihad Combat
U.S. Attorney’s Office
July 30, 2012
CHICAGO—A Chicago man pleaded guilty today to planning to travel to Somalia in 2010 to engage in jihadist fighting for a foreign terrorist organization. The defendant, Shaker Masri, pleaded guilty to attempting to provide material support to al Shabaab, a designated foreign terrorist organization, knowing that it was engaging in terrorism. The guilty plea resolved charges that have been pending since Masri was arrested as he was preparing to leave the country in August 2010.
Masri, 28, a U.S. citizen who lived in Chicago’s Gold Coast neighborhood, remains in federal custody while awaiting sentencing, which U.S. District Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman scheduled for 1:30 p.m. on October 16, 2012. Masri’s plea agreement calls for an agreed sentence of 118 months (nine years, 10 months). Attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization carries a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
The guilty plea was announced by Gary S. Shapiro, Acting United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, and Robert D. Grant, Special Agent in Charge of the Chicago Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The investigation was conducted by the Chicago FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force, which consists of FBI special agents; Chicago Police officers; and representatives from 20 federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies.
According to the plea agreement, on July 19, 2010, Masri told an associate, who, unbeknownst to Masri at the time, was a government cooperating source, that he had decided to travel abroad to engage in a jihadist conflict as a combatant. Masri told this individual that he had two choices: either travel to Somalia to aid al Shabaab or to Afghanistan to aid al Qaeda, and Masri indicated that he had decided to travel to Somalia. Masri assured the cooperating source (CS) that he was determined to join a jihadist conflict and only needed funds to facilitate his plan. The CS responded that he had money to fund Masri’s proposed travel, but only if he could join Masri in traveling to Somalia to join al Shabaab, and Masri agreed.
Masri admitted that he and the CS met to discuss their proposed travel on multiple occasions over the following two weeks. They discussed the logistics of traveling to Somalia, including prospective routes, dates, how to conceal their departure, the costs of the journey, the necessity of supplies, and the weapons they would need to acquire in Somalia. Masri warned the CS that they had to be careful to avoid drawing any attention to their proposed travel, the plea agreement states.
On July 23 and 28, 2010, Masri and the CS met to discuss their proposed travel. Masri suggested that, to avoid suspicion, they should avoid traveling directly towards East Africa. Rather, Masri suggested that they travel to southern California, where they could cross the U.S. border into Mexico. From Mexico, Masri explained that they could travel to and through a Latin or South American country that did not work with United States’ law enforcement before heading to East Africa. When asked by the CS how they would link up with al Shabaab once in Somalia, Masri assured the CS that the area of southern Somalia where they would be traveling was controlled exclusively by al Shabaab. Masri further assured the CS that, after arriving in Somalia, he expected they would be placed with a faction of al Shabaab’s militia comprised of foreign fighters.
Masri admitted in his plea that he knew that al Shabaab was a militant organization that had engaged in violent terrorist activity. He was also aware that al Shabaab’s leadership had issued statements advocating terrorism, and he further knew that the United States had designated al Shabaab as a foreign terrorist organization. In their July 23 meeting, Masri told the CS that once they embarked on their journey, they would be “wanted” men.
On July 29, 2010, Masri and the CS met at the CS’s home where they used the CS’s computer to purchase airline tickets to travel from Chicago to Los Angeles. Using a debit card provided by the CS, Masri purchased two one-way tickets to travel from Chicago’s Midway Airport to Los Angeles on August 4, 2010
Masri told the CS that before they left, he needed to discard his laptop and purchase a new computer. Masri explained that he needed to destroy his computer because it contained incriminating information, and the CS agreed to help. In the afternoon of August 3, 2010, Masri and the CS met to finalize preparations for their impending journey to Somalia. They went to a liquor store where the CS was to collect a purported debt that could be used to finance their trip. After purportedly obtaining $18,000 in funds from the liquor store, Masri and the CS traveled to a retail store where they purchased a new laptop computer. Masri was arrested as he and the CS exited the store.
The government is being represented by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Joel Hammerman and Nicole Kim, with assistance from the Counterterrorism Section of the Justice Department’s National Security Division.
“Chicago man pleads guilty in overseas suicide bomb plot”
By Jason Meisner
Tribune reporter
3:47 p.m. CDT, July 30, 2012
SNIPPET: “Shaker Masri, 28, an American-born U.S. citizen of Syrian descent, entered a guilty plea to one count of attempting to provide material support to a terrorist organization. Under an agreement with prosecutors, Masri will be sentenced to 9 years and 10 months in prison and can withdraw his plea if U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman does not go along with the terms at a hearing in October.”
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