National Guardsman Accused of Trying to Aid Islamic State

An Illinois National Guard specialist with the exceptional cousin were arrested on federal charges that they conspired to aid Islamic State terrorists.
Hasan Edmonds, 22, the guardsman, was found Wednesday at Chicago’s Midway Airport terminal. Jonas Edmonds, 29, was apprehended at his Aurora, Illinois, home, Chicago U.S. Attorney Zachary Fardon said in a very statement.
“We will pursue and prosecute with vigor people who support ISIL and agenda of ruthless violence,” Fardon said, using shorthand to the Islamic State of Iraq as well as the Levant.
The case comes a month after prosecutors in Brooklyn, Nyc, charged three local men with looking to join Islamic State. This month, a U.S. Airforce veteran was indicted in Brooklyn for wanting to join the Sunni Muslim insurgency that controls swaths of Syria and Iraq.
Prosecutors said Thursday that this two men met through an undercover FBI agent and plotted panic or anxiety attack with a U.S. military facility in northern Illinois. Jonas Edmonds planned to execute the plot after Hasan left for Cairo, where he wanted to fight for Islamic State, the trainer told us.
Shackles
Wearing orange jumpsuits and shackles, the Edmonds cousins made their initial appearance before U.S. Magistrate Judge Sheila Finnegan within a crowded Chicago courtroom. Hasan were built with a shaved head and glasses. The elder cousin, Jonas, was bearded.
The men, represented by court-appointed counsel, remained seated in the proceeding. Jonas on occasion swiveled in her chair and considered the ceiling.
Both acknowledged for the judge which they understood the charges against them.
Jonas’s attorney, Jim Graham, said his client wouldn’t immediately contest prosecutors’ request to support him in custody. Hasan’s lawyer, Paul Flynn, requested a bail hearing. Finnegan scheduled it for Monday. She also set an April 6 hearing on whether the U.S. had probable induce to charge the men.
The defence declined to touch upon the case.
Both the face providing many years in prison for conspiring to produce material support to a terrorist group and fines of as much as $250,000.
The criminal complaint sworn out by FBI Special Agent Morgan Spurlock included transcripts of messages relating to the cousins as well as a government informant.
‘My Sidearm’
“In truth, I’m best with my sidearm (handgun) and my rifle,” Hasan Edmonds said inside a January message, according to the filing.
The exchange referred in Arabic to “kufar,” or infidels, and “dowlah,” a term for country or state common to refer to Islamic State, Spurlock said.
“I am few in number than the kufar army but you can find believers like myself hear in the united states,” Hasan said, according to the filing, which retained his typographical errors. “Either we will reach dowlah or bring the flames of war towards heart od this land with Allahs promission.”
The situation is U.S. v. Edmonds, U.S. District Court, Northern District of Illinois (Chicago).
To contact the reporter within this story: Andrew Harris in federal court in Chicago at aharris16@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors in charge of this story: Michael Hytha at mhytha@bloomberg.net Andrew Dunn, Charles Carter