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Karrem Nasr, 23, moved from the Trenton suburb of Lawrenceville to Egypt in July hoping to connect with the Somali-based al-Shabab, they said.
He intended to "receive military training and engage in jihad" against the United States and its allies and was "prepared to kill and be killed" for the cause, U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said in Brooklyn on Friday, Dec. 29.
Nasr was seized in Nairobi earlier this month on his way to Somalia, Williams said.
He was returned to the United States on Thursday and brought before a federal judge in Brooklyn on Friday, the U.S. attorney said.
Nasr, who was born in the U.S. to Egyptian parents, used the name “Ghareeb Al-Muhajir,” according to an FBI complaint.
He allegedly told a confidential government source that "evil" America was the "head of the snake" and needed to be eliminated, says the complaint, filed in the Eastern District of New York in Brooklyn.
Nasr promised “jihad on your home turf," along with plane, bomb and fire emojis that carried the warning: "Coming soon to a US location near you." (See image array above)
Nasr was "motivated by the heinous terrorist attack perpetrated by Hamas on October 7" and "devoted himself to waging violent jihad against America and its allies," said Williams, the U.S. attorney in Brooklyn.
He was "bent on joining and training with al Shabaab so that he could execute his jihadist mission of death and destruction," Williams said.
Al-Shabab has attacked the Somali government, civilians and foreigners -- including Americans and citizens of other United Nations countries -- through suicide bombings, rockets and improvised explosive devices. The U.S. State Department designated the organization a terror group in 2008.
Nasr's arrest was made possible by the FBI’s New York Joint Terrorism Task Force and its various law enforcement partners in the United States and abroad, said FBI Assistant Director in Charge James Smith.
The effort included the use of a confidential informant who posed as a "facilitator for terrorist organizations," according to the FBI complaint.
Nasr told the source in conversations on an encrypted messaging app that he'd "been thinking about engaging in jihad for a long time" and was "particularly motivated to become a jihadi by the October 7, 2023 Hamas terrorist attack in Israel," the complaint says.
His mother apparently had planned to visit this month and bring him back to the U.S., which the source said accelerated Nasr's plans to connect with al Shabaab in Somalia.
Three days before his scheduled Dec. 14 flight to join the jihadists, Nasr told the source that he "planned to delete data from his cellphone and computer to ensure that if he were detained, law enforcement would not be able to recover evidence of his jihadist activities from those devices," it says.
The day of Nasr's flight he had a stopover in Kenya, where he was seized by the authorities.
Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn charged him with attempting to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization. A U.S. District Court judge on Friday ordered him detained pending trial.
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