He plotted a 9/11 type of attack

A Kenyan member of the Al Shabab terrorist group in East Africa plotted for years to crash an airplane into a building in a major U.S. city, prosecutors charged Wednesday.

Cholo Abdi Abdullah enrolled in a flight school in the Philippines in 2016 and researched how to hijack an aircraft, including how to breach a cockpit, according to a 19-page indictment.

He was arrested in July 2019 by Philippine authorities.

“Cholo Abdi Abdullah, as part of a terrorist plot directed by senior Al Shabab leaders, obtained pilot training in the Philippines in preparation for seeking to hijack a commercial aircraft and crash it into a building in the United States,” acting Manhattan U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss said.

“This chilling callback to the horrific attacks of September 11, 2001, is a stark reminder that terrorist groups like Al Shabab remain committed to killing U.S. citizens and attacking the United States.”

Abdullah, 30, pleaded not guilty in a Manhattan Federal Court hearing and faces a maximum sentence of life in prison for terrorism offenses.

Prosecutors say he researched how to hijack a commercial airliner, including security aboard aircraft. He also allegedly sought information on the tallest building in a major U.S. city and information on obtaining a U.S. visa, according to the indictment.

Al Shabab is Al Qaeda’s affiliate in East Africa and responsible for numerous terrorist attacks, including a Jan. 15, 2019, siege at a hotel in Nairobi, Kenya, that killed 21 people. Among the dead was an American survivor of the 9/11 attacks.

The terrorist group recently launched “Operation Jerusalem Will Never be Judaized” in response to the decision to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, prosecutors said.

“Nearly 20 years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, there are those who remain determined to conduct terror attacks against United States citizens,” FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge William Sweeney Jr.