A 20 year-old Pennsylvania man pleaded guilty Monday to providing material support to members of the Islamic State terrorist group (ISIS) and tweeting out a “killing” list that identified people serving in the US military.
Jalil Ibn Ameer Aziz, a natural born American, was arrested on charges of conspiring against Americans in December 2015 after using at least 71 different Twitter accounts to disseminate ISIS propaganda and “advocate violence against the U.S. and its citizens” the Department of Justice (DOJ) said in a statement.
He now faces up to 25 years and a $500,000 fine after admitting to providing resources to a foreign terrorist organization, and transmitting communication containing a threat, both of which are felonies.
Jalil Aziz, Pennsylvania Resident Charged with Providing Material Support to ISIL https://t.co/oW4EuoZiZH pic.twitter.com/pHgQBiG9u3
— Patricia D McClendon (@PatsCSW) December 21, 2015
In March 2015, Aziz published on Twitter a list containing the names, photos, rank and home addresses of more than 100 American military personnel, along with instructions to kill them, which he referred to as “an assassination list” according federal counterterrorism prosecutor Robert Sander.
The message exhorted “brothers residing in America” to “kill them in their own lands, behead them in their own homes, stab them to death as they walk their streets thinking that they are safe.”
Federal officials said the soldiers were notified and appropriate security measures were taken.
His Twitter accounts were repeatedly flagged and suspended for breaching policies against extremist material, but every time they got suspended, Aziz would create new accounts using the same IP address. This ultimately allowed police to track him to his home in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where he resided with his parents.
In the complaint, the DOJ lists several examples of how Aziz’s social media activity supported ISIS by radicalizing his followers and inciting them to violence, including a tweet he sent in January 2015, calling for the death of all infidels or non-followers of Islam , known as kufar.
In February 2015, Aziz posted numerous tweets in response to the shooting of three Muslim individuals at Chapel Hill, North Carolina. One of them said: “This martyrdom will be a spark that will awaken sleeping lions in America, let their blood watered the seeds of jihad #ChapelHillShooting”
In a tweet sent in March 2015, he noted that Pennsylvania gun laws are “very light” and that it is easy to “arm yourself.”
On a separate occasion, Aziz also called for the assassination of former President Barack Obama, saying “#IS “Know O Obama, that we are coming to America and know that we will sever your head in the White House.”
This tweet also featured a photograph of a masked man about to behead a soldier.
Full @TheJusticeDept statement on 20yo Jalil Ibn Ameer Aziz guilty plea on #ISIL #ISIS related charges: pic.twitter.com/yutjaS4rbg
— Jeff Seldin (@jseldin) January 30, 2017
During a house search in November 2015, police found four high-capacity magazines, ammunitions, a knife and a black balaclava similar to those worn by ISIS fighters, and other survival items, suggesting he was plotting an attack.
Aziz was subsequently arrested.
Authorities have also said Aziz discussed meeting other members of the terrorist organization in ISIS-controlled territory abroad and expressed on Twitter his interest in “buying” a Yazidi sex slave upon his arrival there.
“I just want one girl 17 years old,” he tweeted, according to federal prosecutors.
He is due to be sentenced in May.
