Samuel Rahamin Topaz, a 21-year-old MUSLIM resident of Fort Lee, New Jersey was charged with conspiracy to provide material support to the Islamic State terrorist group on Thursday.
IB TIMES Topaz allegedly conspired with other MUSLIM wannabe jihadists to travel overseas, including Munther Omar Saleh, 20, a student at Vaughn College of Aeronautics and Technology, who is charged with plotting to build a pressure cooker bomb like the one used in the Boston Marathon terrorist attacks.
Topaz’s arrest came just a day after federal prosecutors charged another MUSLIM — Fareed Mumuni — with attempting to stab a FBI special agent who was executing a search warrant at his Staten Island home. Mumuni was reportedly linked to Topaz through a common associate, 20-year-old Munther Omar Saleh — a MUSLIM college student in Queens, New York — who was arrested on Saturday along with an unnamed co-conspirator.
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“Material support of a terrorist organization is a violation of federal law,” FBI Special Agent-in-Charge Richard Frankel said, in a statement released Thursday. “Topaz conspired to provide services and personnel to ISIL [ISIS]. Topaz discussed his desire to travel to Syria to join ISIL. Fortunately, this threat did not materialize.”
Mumuni was allegedly plotting to detonate an explosive device in New York, according to media reports. It is not yet clear if Topaz was a part of this plot, and the charges against Topaz do not mention whether he planned to carry out an attack on U.S. soil.
According to the FBI statement, Topaz had exchanged hundreds of emails and text messages with co-conspirators, discussing plans to travel to Syria and Iraq. In a Facebook post, dated April 25, Topaz said that he was deleting all his social media accounts “until I leave the country.”
Topaz posted selfies on his Facebook page wearing head and face coverings. “Which assassin am I, or am I all of them?” he wrote.
Topaz is now being held without bail after appearing in Federal District Court in Newark, New Jersey. If convicted, he faces a maximum of 15 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.
http://www.barenakedislam.com/2015/06/19/arrested-another-muslim-terrorist-wannabe-recruited-to-help-the-islamic-state-is-the-4th-isis-linked-muslim-arrested-in-the-ny-nj-area-in-recent-weeks/
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