FBI arrested three men<\/a> in San Diego, Sacramento and Kansas City early Friday morning on charges that they conspired to provide material support to ISIS.<\/p>\nBereen Dzayee, 25, of Lakeside, Elias Shamsaldeen, 21, of Porterville, California and Bisaam Ghafoor, 21, of Leawood, Kansas were arrested on a complaint filed in the District of Kansas for conspiring to provide material support to terrorism after collectively providing over $2,000 to an individual they understood to be a member of ISIS.\u00a0<\/p>\n
As detailed in the complaint, in various messaging exchanges, Ghafoor exclaimed it would be \u201csick\u201d if his name could be written on the drone used in an attack on Americans. Dzayee suggested that targets of drones should include U.S. Special Forces. In other exchanges, Shamsaldeen expressed a desire to stab and injure a U.S. servicemember. \u00a0Ghafoor said he has always wanted to kill a female soldier by beheading, and added, \u201cI wish I could kill 300,000,000 Americans.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis administration has put terrorists, cartels, and gangs on notice,\u201d said Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche. \u201cToday\u2019s arrest of three individuals who allegedly conspired to provide material support to ISIS makes clear our commitment to taking down terrorist networks \u2014 anywhere. Thanks to the vigilance of the FBI, their alleged scheme was dismantled and further acts of violence against U.S. service members were prevented.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThese subjects allegedly swore allegiance to ISIS, plotted multiple attacks, and even targeted U.S. service members \u2014 but this FBI stopped them cold,\u201d said FBI Director Kash Patel. \u201cThe success of this op shows once again this FBI\u2019s continued record of stopping terrorist attacks before they happen, simply the best way to defend the homeland \u2014 and shows we\u2019ll stop at nothing to defend Americans from those who seek to do us harm. I want to thank our teams in Kansas City, San Diego, Sacramento, Newark, and Richmond, and the Counterterrorism Division for their outstanding efforts on this investigation and commitment to mission.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAccording to the complaint, these defendants conspired to support ISIS, a ruthless terrorist organization, with the intent, among other things, to fund plans to kill American servicemembers abroad,\u201d said Assistant Attorney General for National Security John A. Eisenberg. \u201cThanks to the work of the FBI, their plans to betray their country in the gravest way lies in ruin. Instead, these defendants will face justice in our courts.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFor years, the Department of Justice has been encouraging Americans that if they see suspicious activity, they should report it to law enforcement. That\u2019s because long gone are the days where terrorist threats and attacks are incidents that only take place far away on foreign soil,\u201d said U.S. Attorney Ryan A. Kriegshauser for the District of Kansas. \u201cUnfortunately, we must face the reality of bad actors living within our borders clandestinely conspiring on ways to create fear and havoc. The only way to root out and prevent terrorism plots is through collaboration among all levels of law enforcement and across jurisdictions. Collaboration is which is what facilitated the arrests of these three suspects.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to the complaint, filed in the District of Kansas, beginning by at least February 2025 to about June 2026, the individuals communicated about several plans to support ISIS, including through the provision of personnel, services, and money. Through Discord chats, voice calls, and other messaging platforms, the coconspirators pledged allegiance to ISIS and its leader. The defendants exchanged messages in social media groups promoting violence in furtherance of ISIS.<\/p>\n
The defendants collectively provided over $2,000 to an individual they believed to be an ISIS member. Ghafoor\u2019s name was written on the projectile of one of the rocket-propelled grenades purportedly to be used in an attack overseas to kill U.S. servicemembers. Shamsaldeen provided financial resources for the purpose of purchasing drones, which, in turn, were to be used to attack and kill U.S. servicemembers deployed overseas.<\/p>\n
The defendants and others communicated their desires to travel outside the United States to fight on behalf of ISIS. In some of these communications, they expressed a willingness to die on behalf of ISIS.<\/p>\n
The FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force in the San Diego Field Office, Kansas City Field Office and the Sacramento Field Office investigated the cases, with assistance from FBI Field Offices in Richmond and Newark.<\/p>\n
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Scott Rask and Michelle MacFarlane for the District of Kansas and Trial Attorneys Justin Sher and Jay Rezai of the National Security Division\u2019s Counterterrorism Section are prosecuting the case, with valuable assistance from the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Offices for the Eastern District of California and the Southern District of California.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A San Diego man was one of three who allegedly discussed violent attacks and tried to develop a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":348398,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8],"class_list":["post-348397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=348397"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348397\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/348398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=348397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=348397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=348397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}