Those who call for more stringent policies regarding the vetting and admission of “refugees” continue to be derided as racist and Islamophobic. Maybe they should just be called rational.
A case in point on the hazards of Islamic extremism is that wonderful American Aws Mohammed Younis al-Jayab
“America will not isolate me from my Islamic duty,” he wrote to a colleague in Syria, according to the charges. “Only death will do us part. My only wish is to see you and start the action.”
He’s been dubbed the “hipster terrorist” for the glamorous social media shots of him posing in snazzy shirts and designer sunglasses, an iced latte in hand and jacket slung casually over a shoulder.
But Aws Mohammed Younis al-Jayab cut a much different profile Wednesday in a federal courtroom in Chicago, where he wore an orange jail jumpsuit and was shackled at the ankles as he pleaded guilty to charges of aiding a terrorist organization and lying to immigration officials.
Al-Jayab, 25, a Palestinian native with ties to Wisconsin, admitted in a plea agreement with prosecutors that he flew from O’Hare International Airport to Turkey in November 2013 and then entered Syria. Once there, he joined Ansar Al-Islam, a U.S.-designated terrorist group that was a precursor to the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, according to his plea agreement.
After al-Jayab returned to the U.S. in 2014 and settled in California, he told immigration officials that he’d been overseas visiting relatives, according to the court filing.
“I wanted to do the right thing … to defend the Syrian people,” al-Jayab told U.S. District Judge Sarah Ellis Wednesday in broken English. He acknowledged, however, that he knew the group he was joining was engaged in terrorist activities and that he tried to hide his involvement when he returned….
According to the charges, al-Jayab was born in Palestine and spent much of his childhood in Iraq before coming to the U.S. as a refugee in October 2012. While living in Arizona and Wisconsin, al-Jayab communicated on social media about his intention to go to Syria to fight for terrorist organizations, according a criminal complaint filed in Sacramento, Calif.