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 The six, all U.S. citizens, were part of a larger group of friends
and relatives who had been conspiring for the past 10 months, many
trying multiple times to leave the country, federal prosecutors
alleged.
Their arrests on Sunday capped a yearlong FBI investigation into
would-be Islamic State recruits seeking to journey abroad, and there
was no evidence the accused had plans to carry out any attacks
inside the United States, prosecutors said.
Dozens of people from the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, many of them
young Somali-American men, have traveled or attempted to travel
overseas to support Islamic State or al Shabaab, a Somalia-based
militant group, since 2007, according to U.S. prosecutors.
"We have a terror recruiting problem in Minnesota," U.S. Attorney
for Minnesota Andrew Luger told a news conference.
Four men - Zacharia Yusuf Abdurahman, 19, Adnan Farah, 19, Hanad
Mustafe Musse, 19, and Guled Ali Omar, 20 - were arrested in
Minneapolis. They appeared for a brief hearing in federal court on
Monday and were held pending a detention hearing scheduled for
Thursday.
Abdurahman Yasin Daud, 21, and Mohamed Abdihamid Farah, 21, were
arrested in California after driving from Minneapolis to San Diego.
They, too, were ordered by a judge to remain jailed without bond
until their detention hearings, which were slated for Friday.
Extradition proceedings to return them to Minnesota were set to
begin on April 30.
Three of the accused had traveled to New York by bus with another
man, Hamza Ahmed, in November, when they were stopped from boarding
international flights with the intent of reaching Syria, prosecutors
said.
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Ahmed was indicted in February on charges of conspiring to support
Islamic State and lying to federal agents investigating recruitment
by militant groups.
The group met regularly to plan trips, prosecutors said. One
unidentified member had doubts, changed his mind and recorded their
meetings, Luger said.
"These were focused men who were intent on joining a terrorist
organization by any means possible," Luger said.
They received advice and encouragement from another group member,
Abdi Nur, who has stayed in contact with them since he left the
United States last year and joined Islamic State in Syria,
prosecutors said. Nur was charged in November.
(Additional reporting by Lindsay Dunsmuir in Washington and Marty
Graham in San Diego; Editing by Ted Botha, Doina Chiacu, Eric Walsh
and Mohammad Zargham)
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