Asif Ahmed Salim, 35; and Sultane Room Salim, 40, of traveling to Yemen to meet with al-Awlaki’s associates. The indictment further alleges that on July 22, 2009, Farooq travelled with two others to Yemen to meet al-Awlaki. The government claims the men supported AQAP to encourage “violent jihad against the USA and the US military in Iraq, Afghanistan and throughout the world”.
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U.S. Attorney Steven Dettelbach told cleveland.com that federal agents pieced together the case against the four men over the course of many years.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation says Farooq Mohammad, a citizen of India, was an engineering student at Ohio State University between 2002 and 2004.
Farooq and his two fellow travellers gave the associate approximately $22,000 to be given to al-Awlaki.
Asif Salim, a US citizen, studied at OSU from 2000 to 2005.
According the to department, the defendants made various financial transactions in 2008 and 2009, and communicated about raising funds for a trip to the Middle East. Farooq and Ibrahim are charged with “opening credit cards and withdrawing money with no intention of repaying the amounts obtained from the financial institutions”. Mr. Ibrahim Mohammad was arrested in Texas this morning.
Awlaki, a cleric, was killed by a USA drone strike in Yemen in 2011.
“It should be a clear message to people thinking about engaging in these acts that we are going to stick with it, we are going to overcome hurdles and you are going to face justice in an American court no matter how long it takes”, Dettelbach said. Asif Salim is a resident of Overland Park, Kansas, and his brother lives in the Columbus, Ohio, area, the statement said.
According to his LinkedIn page, Salim now works as a professional services manager for a geographic information systems firm in the United Arab Emirates.
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Court documents do not list attorneys for any of the men. USA intelligence had identified him as the head of external operations for al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, an offshoot of the militant group.
