(Los Angeles) A Canadian has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for helping six North American recruits to the Islamic State (IS) group organize and finance their departure to Syria, the United States Department of Justice announced on Monday.
Posted at 5:47 p.m.
Abdullahi Ahmed Abdullahi, 37, was convicted in federal court in San Diego, California, of “providing money and personnel to support the violent jihadist activities of the Islamic State group in Iraq and the Levant”, the department explained in a statement.
Between November 2013 and March 2014, he notably helped three of his cousins from Edmonton, Canada, another cousin from Minneapolis, in the northern United States, and a resident of San Diego to join Syria to fight there. , according to the press release.
During his trial, the defendant pleaded guilty and admitted having committed an armed robbery in an Edmonton jewelry store, part of the loot of which was used to finance the trip of these North American recruits.
The six fighters are presumed dead in Syria, according to the department.
Abdullahi Ahmed Abdullahi was arrested in Canada in 2017, before being extradited to the United States in October 2019.
After a meteoric rise in power in 2014 in Iraq and neighboring Syria and the conquest of vast territories, the IS group saw its self-proclaimed “caliphate” crumble under the impact of successive offensives. He was defeated in 2017 in Iraq and in 2019 in Syria.
But the extremist group responsible for multiple abuses continues to carry out attacks through sleeper cells in both countries.
In early July, the United States announced that it had killed the leader of the IS group in Syria, Maher al-Agal, in a drone strike in the northwest of the country.