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Minnesota Muslim pleads guilty to conspiring to aid the Islamic State

Sep 11, 2015 3:41 am By Robert Spencer

“I committed a terrorist act, and I’m guilty of it.”

Hanad Musse

“Twin Cities ISIL suspect Hanad Musse, 19, pleads guilty,” by Libor Jany, Paul McEnroe and Abby Simons, Star Tribune, September 9, 2015:

Hanad Musse stood before a federal judge Wednesday, ready to plead guilty for his involvement in conspiring to support terrorists in Syria.

But U.S. District Judge Michael Davis wanted more.

“I don’t want a recitation,” said Davis in a stern, almost impatient tone. “I want him to explain to me what he did.”

And with that, as a packed courtroom listened intently, the 19-year-old Musse explained why for nearly a year he conspired with his friends to find a way to join the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Reports of beheadings, rapes and kidnapping perpetrated by ISIL troops were not enough to dissuade him from attempting to travel to Syria, he said.

Musse described how he initially saw himself as a freedom fighter, a young man who was going to fight the Syrian oppressors and a Kurdish terrorist organization that perpetrated “evil” upon women and children in Syria and Iraq.

Musse was at first hesitant to implicate his friends as co-defendants in the conspiracy, repeatedly saying “I speak only for myself, sir.” But eventually he acknowledged — one by one — that they were involved with him trying to buy fake passports that would get them out of the United States and eventually into Syria.

Outside the courthouse, Somali activist Sadik Warfa said of Hanad Musse’s guilty plea: “It would have been much better if this case would have gone to trial because we would have learned more.”

He told Davis that he and his friends met as many as 10 times to plan how they would avoid detection by U.S. authorities. He was lured by online ISIL propaganda and through friends, including his cousin Abdi Nur, who successfully left the country in May 2014 to join ISIL.

Finally, after an hourlong hearing, the Somali-American who was born in St. Louis Park summed it up without any prompting from judge, prosecutor or defense attorney. In a packed courtroom filled with more than a dozen of his friends and his father, Musse looked the judge in the eye and said, “I committed a terrorist act, and I’m guilty of it.”

With that, Musse joined Abdullahi Yusuf as the second Minnesotan to plead guilty in an internationally watched terrorism conspiracy case in the Twin Cities….

“They presented themselves as holy fighters who are there to free people of oppression,” said Musse, before pleading guilty to conspiring to support ISIL. He admitted to Davis to seeking out and watching numerous videos of beheadings and suicide bombings posted online by the group’s sympathizers.

But, Musse says, he was more drawn to the group’s equally powerful narrative of fighting to end the persecution of Sunni Muslims in Iraq and Syria.

For every image of an execution posted on an ISIL-related account, there is one of the devastation wrought by airstrikes by the U.S.-led coalition.

He and his friends, Musse said, were bound by a belief that they were going overseas to fight the forces of Syrian President Bashar Assad and the terror group PKK, or the Kurdistan Workers’ Party….

Musse pleaded guilty to conspiracy to provide material support to a terrorist organization, while charges of aiding and abetting and financial aid fraud were dismissed.

Musse, dressed in an orange jumpsuit with his hands clasped behind his back, answered questions from Davis and Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew Winter, who went through portions of the plea agreement, line by line.

“Was that your intent, to give yourself to the organization for any purposes that they needed you for?” Winter asked.

“Yes sir,” said Musse, who attempted to leave the country in November 2014 and again in 2015 before he was stopped by his father….

Some supporters cried softly throughout the proceeding, and several stood up and held up their fists in solidarity as he was escorted out of the courtroom.

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Filed Under: American jihadis, Featured, Islamic State (aka ISIS, ISIL, Daesh) Tagged With: Hanad Musse


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Comments

  1. Mark says

    Sep 11, 2015 at 4:23 am

    One down… Who knows how many more that can’t leave the U.S. will strike here.
    All this from 30,000 isis fighters.
    I don’t buy it anymore because I think this hole refugee thing is a setup to move islam’s crazy young men around the world. 800,000 just in the UK and 10,000 coming here in the U.S. is going to be just the start

  2. Lia Wissing says

    Sep 11, 2015 at 4:33 am

    And the various security forces took note, names & photographs of the up-fisters?

    • cheryl s. says

      Sep 11, 2015 at 8:42 am

      Exactly what I was thinking.

  3. Wakeup says

    Sep 11, 2015 at 5:46 am

    How in God name did this guy ever get American citizenship who signed of that one, wakeup people these people are not your friends. One thing I really like about Trump is that he says it how it is if the emperor has no clothes he will say the emperor has no clothes.

  4. ich says

    Sep 11, 2015 at 7:10 am

    “Reports of beheadings, rapes and kidnapping perpetrated by ISIL troops were not enough to dissuade him ”

    THATS what these people love !!

    Permission to be evil .

  5. Angemon says

    Sep 11, 2015 at 8:32 am

    Reports of beheadings, rapes and kidnapping perpetrated by ISIL troops were not enough to dissuade him from attempting to travel to Syria, he said.

    This is what happens when you’re taught not to link islam and terrorism. The reports of kidnappings, rapes and beheadings were not enough to dissuade him from going because they were an incentive for him to go since they’re all justified according to islamic doctrine.

    Musse described how he initially saw himself as a freedom fighter, a young man who was going to fight the Syrian oppressors and a Kurdish terrorist organization that perpetrated “evil” upon women and children in Syria and Iraq.

    And this despite knowing perfectly well who the aggressor is (ISIS) and the crimes they’re committing – again, those crimes are not a dissuader but an incentive.

  6. Raja says

    Sep 11, 2015 at 8:39 am

    Hmmm so this guys has managed to save the skin of his coreligionist by pleading guilty. Every Muslim allies with his coreligionist as the filthy kafirs are his sworn enemies thanks to the Koran, Hadiths and Mo’s example.

    Pakistan, the enemy of Bangladesh prior to 1971 has been its bosom befriend for a long time. Karzai of Afghanistan declared that he would support the Islamic brethren if they have to fight the West. Ever ready to return evil for the good he received from West in the name of allah!!!

  7. Stonewall says

    Sep 11, 2015 at 9:44 am

    If this person, or any other Muslim wants to leave this country and join the Islamic State, why are we stopping them?

    Ok, he has pled guilty. Lets put him on a plane and deliver him to the Islamic State, never to return.

    Now, we put him in jail, costing us tens of thousands of dollars every year.

    While in jail he propagates his ideology… you don’t think he can be saved do ya?

    Send him into the grind that is the Islamic State…

    • Raja says

      Sep 11, 2015 at 11:37 am

      Good comment !!!!
      That might be the strategy of draining out the West and having a proselyte posted in the prison!!!!

      The kingdom of Satan must continued to be propagated at the cost of generous West.

      I didn’t know the West could be so stupid.

  8. DiMu says

    Sep 11, 2015 at 11:00 am

    This who raised their fists in solidarity ought to have been clapped into handcuffs and thrown into prison. Now they are still out there planning our destruction.

  9. Shmooviyet says

    Sep 11, 2015 at 1:11 pm

    No worries in MN, land of 10,000 halal markets.
    Big Brothers/Sisters are coming to set these misguided youths straight on a path to peaceful, productive lives!

  10. Mirren10 says

    Sep 11, 2015 at 3:53 pm

    Yet another ghastly little snit, with an eminently kickable face.

    So, are all his scumbag supporters, the ones who ‘ raised their fists’ in support of his murderous plans, going to be *investigated* ?

    No, that would be ‘islamophobic’.

    And so, the suicidal carousel moves on.

  11. Tim says

    Sep 13, 2015 at 8:48 am

    if it has not already been suggested I would suggest the Islamic State’s name be changed to the Obama State after all he did create it.

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