Spring man pleads guilty to plan to join ISIS
Ex-UH student faces up to 15 years in prison for plotting to fight in Syria
A college student from Spring pleaded guilty on Monday to plotting to join ISIS in Syria, a joint plan that resulted in the death of a Klein Oak High School classmate he helped recruit to the jihadi insurgency.
U.S. District Judge Lynn N. Hughes questioned Asher Abid Khan, a mechanical engineering student at the University of Houston, about whether he knew he was supporting a terrorist organization that produced and posted violent videos of executions. Khan, who was accompanied in court by his parents, admitted he knew what ISIS was doing and “stupidly bought into their propaganda.”
Khan, a 23-year-old U.S. citizen, ditched his plan in Turkey as he was on his way to joining jihadi forces, but he continued to talk of becoming a martyr after he returned home. A co-defendant Khan knew from high school and their mosque is believed to have died fighting in Syria, a fact federal prosecutors said was critical to his culpability.
“Khan provided ISIS a battlefield soldier to further the terrorist organization’s violent agenda,” Acting U.S. Attorney Abe Martinez said in a statement. The plea, Martinez said, demonstrated the Justice Department’s commitment to pursuing justice for “those who would give aid and comfort to terrorists operating in the United States and abroad.”
A third defendant, accused of facilitating the trips to join ISIS, is still at large and thought to be living in Turkey or Syria.
In exchange for Khan’s plea, prosecutors agreed to withdraw additional charges.
He faces up to 15 years in prison and a maximum of life on supervised release at his sentencing March 5, although a prosecutor agreed to consider a punishment at the lower end of the sentencing range. He remains free on bond.
Khan is the sixth person in Texas to plead guilty to attempting to provide support for ISIS, according to the Program on Extrem-
ism at George Washington University. A seventh man is awaiting trial in Dallas.
In an unrelated local case before the same federal judge, Omar Faraj Saeed Al Hardan, 25, is due for sentencing Dec. 18 after pleading guilty to an ISIS bomb plot in the Houston area.
In all, 147 people have been charged in the U.S. with involvement in ISIS, and 89 have pleaded guilty or been convicted, the GWU researchers found. The vast majority are U.S. citizens or permanent residents.
Seamus Hughes, deputy director of the GWU program and an expert on homegrown terrorism, said Khan is relatively typical of the people who have tried to join ISIS.
“He’s a bit aimless, but he’s looking for some sort of meaning,” he said.
News coverage of barrel bombs and other atrocities perpetrated by Syrian President Bashar Assad’s forces likely motivated Khan to join, Seamus Hughes said. He had a circle of friends who were encouraging him, telling him this was a good idea and feeding off each other, he said.
Caliphate ambitions
Khan stood at a podium in a suit and tie Monday afternoon, his hands interlaced, answering the judge’s broad-ranging questions about the history of the Islamic State, his news consumption and what prompted him to join ISIS.
“You knew what ISIS was doing? What were they doing?” Judge Hughes asked.
“They were trying to take over or dismantle the regime in Syria, and at same time they had ambition to restart a caliphate,” Khan replied.
The judge then asked Khan about the last time there was a caliphate. About 100 years ago during the Ottoman Empire, Khan said.
It was earlier, the judge rebutted.
“You wanted to re-establish the Ottoman Empire?” the judge asked. “No, sir,” Khan said. “The Ottoman Empire had its faults, but it was tolerant,” the judge added.
Hughes asked Khan how this informal group was trying to re-establish the caliphate.
“I thought they were trying to win over people’s hearts, and now I realize it was completely false propaganda,” Khan said.
What about the 2014 videos on YouTube that depicted them shooting people on the spot? the judge wondered.
“I was very close-minded then,” Khan said, adding he believed ISIS sympathizers’ explanations of what took place in the gruesome videos of slayings.
“I knew what they were doing, and at the time I stupidly bought into the propaganda,” Khan said. He said he now completely disagrees with all they stand for and hope to achieve.
Plans on Facebook
Khan was living in Australia and Sixto Ramiro Garcia, his Klein Oak High School friend, was in South Texas when the two began hatching a plan via Facebook to travel to Turkey and slip into Syria to fight for ISIS. They chatted online about their shared faith in the Islamic caliphate and their desire to dedicate their lives to something bigger than themselves.
According to court documents, Khan reached out to Mohamed Zuhbi, a facilitator in Turkey for foreigners who wanted to fight for ISIS.
On Feb. 24, 2014, Khan traveled to Istanbul with plans to continue to Syria and enlist with ISIS. According to court documents, Khan traveled to Turkey, but he changed his mind after a call home in which relatives lied and said his mother was ill in the intensive care unit.
Khan also offered Garcia money and helped him connect with ISIS, according to court documents. By August 2014, Garcia made it to an ISIS boot camp in Syria. On Dec. 25, 2014, Garcia’s mother posted on Facebook that her son had died fighting for the cause.
FBI agents learned of Khan’s involvement from these Facebook messages.