Court docs: Army vet’s IS support dates to ’11

Despite soldier’s words, he remained in service

HONOLULU — A U.S. soldier recently arrested on terrorism charges expressed support for the Islamic State group as early as 2011 but remained in the Army while the military and the FBI investigated to determine whether he posed a threat, authorities said.

Sgt. 1st Class Ikaika Kang was arrested over the weekend after the 34-year-old veteran of deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan declared his loyalty to the terrorist group and exclaimed that he wanted to “kill a bunch of people,” according to authorities.

The case highlights the challenges investigators face with protecting the public from a potentially dangerous actor on one hand and gathering sufficient evidence to enable prosecution on the other.

Kang is on record making pro-islamic State comments and threatening to hurt or kill other service members back in 2011, according to an FBI affidavit filed Monday in federal court.

The Army revoked his security clearance in 2012 but gave it back to him the following year. Last year, the Army called the FBI when it “appeared that Kang was becoming radicalized,” the affidavit states.

Retired Army judge and prosecutor Col. Gregory A. Gross said he was perplexed that the Army allowed Kang to remain a soldier even after his favorable comments toward the Islamic State group. But Gross said the Army may have decided Kang was just mouthing off and was not a threat.

Gross served as the initial judge in the court martial of Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, an Army psychiatrist who killed 13 people and wounded more than 30 in a 2009 shooting at Fort Hood, Texas. He said Tuesday that he was concerned by the similarities between Kang and Hasan’s case.

A 26-page affidavit detailed how Kang thought he was dealing with people working for Islamic State but who were actually undercover agents.

Kang and the agents together made combat training videos he believed would be taken to the Middle East to help prepare the group’s soldiers to fight American forces, according to the affidavit. Kang had received the highest level of combat training available in the Army and was a mixed martial arts enthusiast.

Also on Saturday, Kang and an undercover agent allegedly went shopping for a drone to give to Islamic State fighters.

Kang’s father told Honolulu television station KHON and the Star-advertiser newspaper his son may have had post-traumatic stress disorder. Kang told the newspaper he became concerned after his son’s return from Afghanistan. He said his son was withdrawn.

Kang was scheduled to appear in court Thursday for a detention hearing.