Mpls. man charged with threatening FBI agents
A criminal complaint says 19-year-old Khaalid Adam Abdulkadir took his anger to Twitter after prosecutors charged an Eagan man with steering his friends to ISIS. An FBI informant tipped off investigators about Abdulkadir's alleged threats that he was going to kill FBI agents for taking away his brothers.
"They will find on the floor body's dropping fast #kill them FBI," read one of his tweets.
The posts, which apparently went up Wednesday night, had been deleted by Thursday morning.
The complaint also alleges Abdulkadir was in touch with two other former Minneapolis men who authorities say have become online recruiters. According to direct messages Twitter provided to investigators, Abdulkadir asked a man who goes by the name Mujahid Miski for advice on how to get to Syria.
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In an exchange from Jan. 28, Miski told Abdulkadir to get to Turkey safely, "and you'll get help there insha Allah," according to the complaint.
Miski, whose real name is Mohamed Abdullahi Hassan, allegedly left Minnesota in 2008 to join the terrorist group al-Shabab in Somalia — but his tweets suggested an admiration for ISIS. He made news this week after the U.S. State Department confirmed he had surrendered to Somali government officials.
Prosecutors say Abdulkadir also used Facebook to tell Abdi Nur, who's believed to be fighting for ISIS in Syria, that he wanted to join him.
"We got the money in cash and plan doing something with it so help bro," Abdulkadir wrote in the Facebook message.
Abdulkadir was arrested Friday morning at his Minneapolis home. His detention hearing will be held at 3 p.m. on Wednesday in Minneapolis.
In addition to the alleged threats, prosecutors say Abdulkadir and other young men have engaged in "troubling behaviors" that appear to be targeting law enforcement.
When one of the defendants made a court appearance in May in Minneapolis, Abdulkadir and several other young men gathered on the courthouse plaza. They started videotaping a U.S. deputy marshal, who was sitting at the courthouse cafe about two feet away on the other side of a window.
According to the complaint, young men have been seen taking pictures of the Minneapolis federal courthouse and the FBI building in Brooklyn Center. It's unclear whether Abdulkadir was among them.
"FBI agents in Minneapolis and around the country risk their lives every day to keep the rest of us safe," said U.S. Attorney Andrew Luger in a statement. "Threatening violent retaliation against federal agents is both illegal and outrageous."
This isn't the first time federal authorities have reacted swiftly to alleged threats on social media following the high-profile prosecution of ISIS suspects. Mahamed Abukar Said tweeted that he was going to "whack" the attorney general after the April arrests of six men who were charged with conspiring to join ISIS. Said pleaded guilty and was sentenced to four years of probation.