A 26-year-old Virginia man has been charged with providing and conspiring to provide material support to the Islamic State.
Mohamad Jamal Khweis of Alexandra, Va., was charged Thursday, according to a criminal complaint unsealed in the Court of Eastern District of Virginia.
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In March, Khweis was found by Kurdish Peshmerga forces escaping Islamic State-controlled territory near Sinjar, Iraq.
He is the American-born son of Palestinian immigrants living in Virginia.
According to the affidavit in support of the criminal complaint, Khweis admitted to renting a car in Alexandria and flying out of Baltimore to begin his travel to join the Islamic State in mid-December. He stopped in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands before crossing into Syria through Turkey with the help of Islamic State facilitators.
Khweis also admitted to staying at an Islamic State safehouse in Raqqa, Syria, with other Islamic State recruits. He also answered yes when asked by the terror group if he would be a suicide bomber.
He is scheduled to appear at the federal courthouse in Alexandria Thursday afternoon. The FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force is still investigating Khweis.
