“United States Attorney Roger B. Handberg announces that Muhammed Momtaz Al-Azhari (26, Tampa) has pleaded guilty to attempting to provide material support or resources to a designated foreign terrorist organization, namely, the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (‘ISIS’). Pursuant to the terms of his plea agreement, Al-Azhari and the United States have agreed to the imposition of a stipulated sentence of 18 years in federal prison. …
According to the plea agreement, Al-Azhari is a United States citizen who spent most of his life abroad and came to embrace dogmatic, Islamist/Salafist beliefs. In or around 2015, Al-Azhari was convicted of advocating for Jaysh al-Islam, an armed Islamist group then participating in the Syrian conflict, in Saudi Arabia. Al-Azhari spent approximately three years in Saudi Arabian custody, after which he was removed to the United States. …
In or around April 2020, Al-Azhari began planning to carry out an attack in support of ISIS. …
Between late April and May 2020, Al-Azhari also had multiple interactions with an FBI undercover employee (‘UC-1’) and a confidential human source (‘CHS-1’), during which Al-Azhari tried to buy guns from the UC-1, including a fully automatic rifle,… Al-Azhari … asked CHS-1 to obtain a Glock pistol and an unregistered silencer for him. Agents arrested Al-Azhari when he took possession of the gun and silencer on May 24, 2020.”
– U.S. Attorney’s Office, Middle District of Florida, “Tampa Man Pleads Guilty to Attempting to Provide Material Support to ISIS,” justice.gov, February 24, 2023
Editor’s Note: According to most historians of the Islamic State (also referred to as ISIS, ISIL, and Daesh), “the group emerged out of al-Qaeda in Iraq as a response to the U.S. invasion in 2003.” See Hassan Hassan, “The True Origins of ISIS,” theatlantic.com, November 30, 2018, for more information.