A former New Jersey resident was arrested and charged Monday for allegedly conspiring with others in the New York City area to provide material support to the Islamic State jihadist group, according to federal prosecutors.
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Alaa Saadeh, Nader’s brother, was arrested on June 29, 2015, and charged with conspiring to provide material support to IS, aiding and abetting an attempt to provide material support to IS, and witness tampering.
Almost two months after his brother and others were arrested for allegedly trying to join up with ISIS, a 20-year-old New Jersey man was taken into custody Monday on a similar accusation. It was not immediately clear when or how he returned to the United States.
Saadeh allegedly sent electronic messages to a Queens, New York conspirator between 2012 and 2013 stating his hatred of the United States and his desire to form a small army that would include his friends, Fishman said.
From New Jersey to California, federal authorities have charged 58 people in the past year alleging support or ties to ISIS, or ISIL as it is also called.
By April of this year, authorities say Nader Saadeh-by then living in Rutherford-was speaking mostly in Arabic, had stopped using the computer in the house, and turned to his smartphone for most communications. The DOJ said he posted images of the flag of Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) on Facebook the day the group declared an Islamic caliphate in Syria and Iraq. Nader Saadeh lived in Rutherford until leaving the country on May 5, 2015, allegedly to join ISIL.
As laid out in the indictment, an informant told investigators that Saadeh said that ISIS’s execution of a captured Jordanian Air Force pilot by burning him alive and the murders of the Charlie Hebdo staff in Paris were “justified”. On his way to the airport, while accompanied by Alaa Saadeh and CC-1, he said that he, Alaa Saadeh, CC-1 and Topaz had plans to reunite overseas within a few weeks.
Saadeh also exchanged text messages with his mother, who pleaded that he ‘not go anywhere if u love me dont kill your mom, ‘ according to the complaint. The other three were arrested in June.
Alaa Saadeh told the FBI that the Queen conspirator provided Nader Saadeh with the name and phone number of an ISIL contract near the Turkey/Syria border who would help Saadeh travel to ISIL-controlled territory.
Nader Saadeh faces up to 20 years in prison.
Fishman credited the FBI and the JTTF with the investigation leading to today’s arrest.
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The indictment notes that the Saadeh brothers’ parents were deported from the U.S. “after sustaining criminal convictions”.
