Los Angeles: Four men have been charged in the US with planning to join and al Qaeda to kill American and other targets, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) said in a statement issued on Monday.
The alleged plot aimed “to provide material support to terrorists by making arrangements to join al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan in order to kill, among others, American targets,” it added.
Three of the four—Ralph Deleon, 23, Miguel Alejandro Santana Vidriales, 21, and Arifeen David Gojali, 21—were arrested on Friday and appeared in court Monday outside Los Angeles, AFP reported.
The fourth man charged, Sohiel Omar Kabir, 34, is in custody in Afghanistan, said the FBI, quoting US Attorney Andre Birotte Jr and Bill Lewis, assistant head of the bureau’s Los Angeles office.
Santana and Deleon told a confidential source working for the FBI that they “planned to travel to Afghanistan to engage in ‘violent jihad’,” said the FBI.
The charges against the four include “conspiracy to kill, kidnap, maim, or injure persons and damage property in a foreign country,” and helping a plot to kill or attempt to kill US officers and American citizens.
They also allegedly sought to help a “conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction outside the United States,” and a plot aimed at “bombing places of public use and government facilities.”
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