Thursday, August 05, 2010
Shaker Masri, 26, was arrested late Tuesday in Countryside, Ill., by members of the Chicago FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force. Officials said the arrest followed an 18-month investigation.
Masri was charged in a criminal complaint with one count each of trying to provide material support to a terrorist organization and trying to provide material support through the use of a weapon of mass destruction, a U.S. Justice Department statement said.
Both charges are felonies.
The complaint said Masri, a U.S. citizen, has been espousing increasingly violent opinions and openly began to express a desire to join a "jihad" and fight against what he called "infidels," the department said.
Officials said Masri during the last month began to actively plan a trip to Somalia, where he hoped to join elements of al-Qaida and the Somali Islamist terrorist group al-Shabaab and participate in a suicide attack.
Masri appeared before U.S. Magistrate Judge Geraldine Soat Brown in Chicago Wednesday, at which point he was formally charged. He was ordered held without bond, and Brown set his next hearing for Monday.
If convicted, Masri faces up to 15 years in prison on each count.