A Pennsylvania man has pled guilty to conspiring to aid the Islamic State and spreading ISIS propaganda.
ABC News reports that Jalil Ibn Ameer Aziz, who was born in the United States, confessed to conspiring to provide material support to the Islamic State group and transmitting communication containing a threat — and one of those threats was against the U.S. military.
Federal counterterrorism prosecutor Robert Sander told ABC News that Aziz, 20, reportedly used dozens of Twitter accounts and an encrypted mobile platform to communicate on behalf of ISIS and aid supporters. Among these postings was a so-called “assassination list” of more than 100 U.S. military personnel, along with a message to “kill them in their own lands, behead them in their own homes, stab them to death as they walk their street.”
Aziz is also accused of sending a Twitter message with his intention of “buying” a Yazidi woman. Yazidis are a Kurdish ethno-religious group targeted for genocide by ISIS, which is known to frequently force Yazidi women into sex slavery.
Aziz’s public defender attempted to downplay the significance of these messages in court, arguing that his client didn’t remember many of them. The postings are “no more than the fantastical musings of an isolated and suppressed teenage boy,” the attorney said.
Aziz faces up to 25 years in prison and a $500,000 fine.
Photo: Dauphin County Prison
