Ali Saleh really, really, really wanted to go to the Middle East.
Over the course of a few days in July and August, the 22-year-old Queens resident traveled from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport to airports in Newark, N.J.; Philadelphia; and Indianapolis – all in an attempt to be allowed to board a flight to Cairo. According to an FBI affidavit filed in court, Mr. Saleh told federal agents that he wanted to go to Egypt for tourism, to Saudi Arabia for the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca, and to Yemen to visit relatives. The agents weren’t buying it.
At the same time they had Saleh under physical surveillance, they were also monitoring various Twitter accounts he’d set up. They had noticed that one of his accounts was used to reach out to a suspected facilitator working with the Islamic State group who helped recruits enter Libya, court papers say. The agents suspected Saleh’s real aim was to travel to Libya to become a jihadi fighter.
A month earlier the same Twitter account had retweeted this message: “IS is winning battle of hearts and minds. People have started to realize that war is a necessity.”
The agents noticed that Saleh, a US citizen, had not booked a return flight to the US. In 2014, Saleh reserved a flight from New York to Istanbul allegedly to travel to Syria for jihad. He missed that flight because his parents took away his passport, according to court documents.
Even after his four-airport odyssey this summer, Saleh remained determined to reach his final destination. He decided to take a train from Cleveland to the airport in Toronto.
Federal agents confronted him at the train station and advised him that Canadian officials were unlikely to allow him to cross the US border. Saleh purchased a train ticket to New York and went home to Queens.
One of his Twitter accounts continued to issue tweets and retweets supportive of the Islamic State group and expressing an intent to join the group, according to court documents.
Saleh was arrested on Sept. 17 and charged with attempting to provide material support – himself – to a US-designated terror group.
