(AP) An Alabama man has been apprehended as part of a yearslong terrorism probe in which the FBI says he told agents he would execute a U.S. soldier if ordered to do so by the Islamic State group.
FBI agents took Nayef Qashou into custody Monday. He’s charged with lying to the FBI and destroying records.
In a newly unsealed affidavit, the FBI says Qashou arrived in the U.S. through Atlanta’s airport in 2015, planning to study nursing at an Opelika, Alabama, community college. The FBI interviewed him more than a dozen times over the next four years.
He used encrypted phone apps to communicate with suspected terrorists who told him he should carry out an attack in the United States, the FBI said.