FBI

Law Enforcement

Lebanese sleeper agent loses challenge to 40-year sentence The Second Circuit on Tuesday upheld the terrorism conviction of man who claimed FBI agents had tricked him into incriminating himself while proffering evidence as a cooperator.

July 27, 2021   

(Courthouse News) A Hezbollah-trained sleeper agent who scouted New York City buildings for possible targets of terrorism failed to secure a reversal of his 40-year prison sentence Tuesday. At oral arguments back in April, attorneys for Lebanon-born Ali Kourani [said he] only […]

Legal

Former Department of Defense linguist sentenced for aiding Hezbollah The contractor pleaded guilty to sending classified information to a romantic interest connected to the Lebanese terrorist organization.

June 23, 2021   

(Courthouse News) Mariam Taha Thompson, a 62-year-old contract linguist who worked for the Pentagon, was sentenced to 23 years in federal prison Wednesday for transmitting highly sensitive information to the Lebanese terrorist organization Hezbollah. “Thompson’s sentence reflects the seriousness of her violation […]

Government & Politics

Omar retweets video by anti-Israel group investigated by FBI for possible terrorism ties While ISM says it's 'non-violent,' its founders have endorsed Palestinians' right to 'armed struggle' in the past

June 13, 2021   

(Fox) “Squad” member Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., retweeted a video produced by an anti-Israel organization previously investigated by the FBI for possible terrorist ties. On Tuesday, one day after she posted a now-infamous tweet likening the U.S. and Israel to terror groups […]

Law Enforcement

Mosque sting operation will get Supreme Court treatment The FBI had to pull the plug on the operation when someone called the police on its informant disguised as a Muslim advocating violence against the United States.

June 7, 2021   

(Courthouse News) Wading into a decade-old class action, the Supreme Court agreed Monday to look at the FBI’s use of an informant to collect information from several Los Angeles and Orange County mosques for more than a year. The FBI petitioned the […]

Children & Teens

North Texan gets 12 years for helping brother avoid capture in 2008 killing of his teen daughters Yassein Said, 59, was convicted by a jury for helping Yaser Said hide from police for over a dozen years. Yaser was suspected of shooting ... his two daughters inside his taxicab in 2008.

June 4, 2021   

(Dallas Morning News) His brother was accused of gunning down his own teenage daughters as they sat inside his taxicab. But Yassein Said didn’t turn him in. Instead, he helped Yaser Said hide from police for over a dozen years, authorities said. […]

Law Enforcement

Accused Islamic State supporter arrives back in Australia, arrested at Melbourne Airport A man accused of being an Islamic State facilitator has been arrested at an Australia airport, years after he dropped off the radar.

May 9, 2021   

(NCA NewsWire) Accused Islamic State facilitator Mohamed Zuhbi is back on Australian shores after being deported from Turkey. Zuhbi was wanted here and in the US for his alleged role with the terrorist group after leaving Australia eight years ago, bound for […]

Government & Politics

Biden and Islamism: What’s past is prologue

May 2, 2021   

During his April 28 speech to Congress, President Biden asserted that white supremacism is currently the most lethal terrorist threat to the country, implicitly downplaying the threat posed by Islamist terror. The Biden administration has yet to clarify its attitude toward Islamism, […]

Children & Teens

Irving man who helped fugitive father elude capture gets 10 years in prison Islam Yaser-Abdel Said, 32, helped conceal his father who was one of the FBI’s most wanted fugitives. The feds say Yaser Said, 64, murdered Islam Said’s two sisters in 2008 — an alleged crime for which he awaits trial.

April 27, 2021   

(Dallas Morning News) An Irving man was sentenced Tuesday to a decade in federal prison for helping his fugitive father elude capture for more than a dozen years in the alleged murders of his two teenage daughters, federal authorities said. Islam Yaser-Abdel […]

Law Enforcement

Hezbollah sleeper agent looks to beat 40-year sentence Ali Kourani said the FBI tricked him into incriminating himself, landing him a sentence nearly three times longer than those handed down for more serious terrorism charges.

April 13, 2021   

(Courthouse News) A Lebanese man who told the FBI he planned to become a suicide bomber for the terrorist group Hezbollah fought to overturn his 40-year sentence at the Second Circuit on Tuesday, saying agents led him to believe the information he […]

Legal

Zion man gets more than 13 years in prison for conspiracy to support Islamic State, telling informant ‘I want to see blood flowing’ U.S. District Judge Andrea Wood called Edward Schimenti the 'more culpable' of the two men charged in the case, but she also described the crime as 'on the less serious end of a scale that starts at a very serious level.'

April 9, 2021   

(Chicago Sun-Times) A federal judge on Friday sentenced a Zion man to 13 and a half years in prison for taking part in a conspiracy to support the Islamic State, in part by collecting cellphones he thought could be used as detonators […]

Legal

Ex-Drexel student whose Facebook posts wished ‘death to all Americans’ will be deported for ties to Yemeni rebels Gaafar al-Wazer was suspended from an English-language program at Drexel after staff became concerned about Facebook posts showing him carrying an AK-47 and wishing 'death to all Americans.'

April 8, 2021   

(Philadelphia Inquirer) A former Drexel University student jailed since 2019 for lying about his contact with anti-American insurgents in Yemen will be released from custody and immediately deported under a deal approved Thursday by a federal judge in Philadelphia. FBI agents arrested […]

Demonstrations

Rights group calls on US Muslims to be ‘extra vigilant’ in wake of Capitol riot Council on American-Islamic Relations says threat posed by far-right white supremacist violence is high and Muslims may be targets

January 13, 2021   

(Middle East Eye) A leading Muslim-American civil rights and advocacy group urged Muslims to remain “extra vigilant” until the end of President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration amid a threat of white supremacist violence. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said on Wednesday that the […]