Feds charge Minneapolis man in terror probe

Federal authorities charged a 19-year-old Minneapolis man on Thursday in an ongoing investigation into the pipeline of young Somali-Americans from the Twin Cities who have been recruited to join the Islamic State.

Hamza Ahmed was charged with lying to the FBI during a terrorism investigation.

He made a brief appearance in federal court in St. Paul on Thursday and will appear again for a detention hearing on Monday.

Authorities say Ahmed and three other Minneapolis men, who were between the ages of 19 and 20, were stopped as they attempted to board overseas flights from John F. Kennedy International Airport on Nov. 8. The three other men have not been charged.

In interviews with the FBI, Ahmed told the agents that he did not know the other men stopped at JFK, and only vaguely knew another unidentified Minneapolis man--believed to currently be fighting in Syria--that authorities questioned him about.

But video, social media and other evidence suggest that Ahmed was lying, according to a criminal complaint.

"Any person has a right to remain silent, or to consult an attorney when speaking with federal agents or prosecutors," said Andy Luger, the U.S. attorney for Minnesota. "However, this office will continue to prosecute those who lie to federal law enforcement officers and impede criminal investigations into suspected terrorist activity."

The arrest of Ahmed marks the latest turn in a several months long probe by federal authorities of Twin Cities residents who have traveled or attempted to travel to Syria to join the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL.

Abdi Nur, 20, a man from Minneapolis, and Yusra Ismail, 19, a St. Paul woman who used a U.S. passport she stole from a friend, traveled separately last year to Syria to join the Islamic State.

Another Minneapolis area man, Abdullahi Yusuf, 18, was turned away from a Turkey-bound flight at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport last year as he attempted to make his way to Syria, according to a criminal complaint.

Like Ahmed, Ismail, Nur and Yusuf all came from Minnesota's large Somali community.

In addition to those Twin Cities terrorism cases, two fellow Minnesotans Abdirahmaan Muhumed, a Somali-American father of nine, and Douglas McCain, a convert to Islam, were killed in a battle in Syria last August. The two men became the first Americans to die while fighting for Islamic State.

In this latest case, authorities say Ahmed and one other man, who was only identified in court documents as M.F., traveled together by bus to New York and planned to take the same flight to Istanbul. (Turkey has been a popular entryway for many foreigners attempting to join the Islamic State.)

In an interview in New York after being removed from his Istanbul-bound flight, Ahmed told FBI agents that he was travelling alone and that he paid for the trip himself.

Ahmed told agents that he saw someone on the bus from Minneapolis to New York that he recognized but did not know his name. When agents showed him a photo of M.F., Ahmed acknowledged he was the person he saw on the bus, but insisted he didn't know him.

In the New York interview, Ahmed was also shown a photo of another Minneapolis man, only identified as H.M.M., who was stopped from boarding a JFK flight to Moscow the same day as Ahmed's flight. But Ahmed said he did not recognize him.

Agents also showed Ahmed the photo of a former Minneapolis man, who they identified only as H.A.M., that federal authorities say left for Syria in early 2014. Ahmed acknowledged that he knew the man from Burnsville High School, and that he had heard rumors at his mosque that H.A.M. had traveled to Syria.

In a second interview on the day he returned to Minnesota by bus with two of the three other men stopped at JFK, Ahmed again insisted that he had traveled alone and only knew H.A.M. "vaguely."

This time he told agents he spoke briefly on the bus with M.F., but again denied they were travelling together.

"The truth is I really don't know these people" Ahmed allegedly told agents at the end of the second interview.

But video footage from outside the station on the day of the Minneapolis-to-New York Greyhound trip shows Ahmed and M.F. arriving to the bus station together. The two then walked into the station together to check their luggage, and sat together in the station for about 30 minutes before lining up together to board the bus.

Transaction records also show that Ahmed and M.F. bought their tickets within 25 minutes of each other. Their bus ticket purchases also had the same Internet protocol address, suggesting that the two purchased their tickets using the same mobile device, according to the complaint.

Agents also say that Ahmed and H.A.M. appeared to have had lengthy conversations on Twitter between November 2013 and March 2014.

In the Twitter correspondence, the two discuss needing to talk "somewhere where it ain't hot."

The Obama administration is trying to increase attention on domestic radicalization, an issue that is in greater focus after last month's terror attacks in Paris.

The Twin Cities were also tapped by the White House last year to be part of an emerging pilot program on combating violent extremism.