MIAMI — A U.S. citizen who moved his household to Syria to affix the Islamic State terrorist group has been sentenced to twenty years in federal jail.
Emraan Ali, 55, a U.S. citizen born in Trinidad and Tobago, was sentenced Tuesday in Miami federal court docket, in line with court docket data. He pleaded responsible in November to conspiring to offer materials help to a international terrorist group.
In line with court docket data, Ali moved his household from Trinidad and Tobago to Brazil, after which to Turkey and ultimately Syria in March 2015. He falsely informed his youngsters that they had been occurring trip however truly meant to affix IS, prosecutors mentioned.
After arriving in Syria, IS registered Ali and his household, and Ali underwent IS non secular and navy coaching with different English audio system, officers mentioned. The coaching included instruction on the operation of assorted computerized weapons such because the AK-47 assault rifle and PKC machine gun.
Ali was ultimately discharged from fight obligation and labored in residential building for IS within the group’s then-de facto capital of Raqqa, investigators mentioned. Ali additionally grew to become a service provider and started shopping for and promoting livestock, vehicles, weapons, weapons equipment and telephones to and from different IS members. Ali additionally offered cash remitting providers to different Trinidadian IS fighters in Syria and donated his personal cash to IS members to help the IS trigger.
Ali and his household relocated inside Syria a number of occasions through the years, officers mentioned. Ali and his son, 22-year-old Jihad Ali, surrendered to Syrian Democratic Forces close to Baghuz in March 2019, over the last sustained Islamic State group battles to take care of territory in Syria, officers mentioned. They had been later transferred to FBI custody and returned to the U.S. The son, who was born in New York and started IS navy and non secular coaching at 15 years previous, was beforehand sentenced to 5 years in jail.
Regardless of their defeat in Syria in March 2019, the militant group’s sleeper cells nonetheless perform lethal assaults in each Syria and Iraq the place they as soon as declared a “caliphate.”
