The FBI arrested and charged three Brooklyn men Wednesday who allegedly were planning to travel to Syria to join the Islamic State.
The men, aged 19, 24 and 30, planned to travel to Syria to join the Islamic militants — and if the plan failed, they would return back to New York to go through with a domestic act of terror, the Justice Department said.
Police arrested Akhror Saidakhmetov, 19, a citizen of Kazakhstan and resident of Brooklyn, at John F. Kennedy International Airport as he attempted to board a flight to Istanbul, Turkey, according to a criminal complaint unsealed in federal court in Brooklyn Wednesday.
Abdurasul Hasanovich Juraboev, 24, and Abror Habibov, 30, both citizens of Uzbekistan living in Brooklyn, were also charged in the complaint. Juraboev was scheduled to leave the U.S. on March 29 for Istanbul. Habibov helped fund Saidakhmetov’s efforts to join the Islamic State.
Authorities were alerted to the three men due to a variety of online postings dating back to summer 2014.
“As alleged, the defendants looked to join the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant by flying to Turkey in a vain attempt to evade detection. And one of the defendants was prepared to commit acts of terror here — in America — if he could not travel,” FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge Rodriguez said in a statement.
Juraboev and Saidakhmetov will appear in court later today in Brooklyn, while Habibov will be arraigned in a court in Jacksonville, Fla. Should convicted, each faces a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison.
