A Denver-area teenager was charged Monday with trying to help terrorists after he allegedly planned to travel to the Middle East in order to become a soldier for the Islamic State terrorist group.
The defendant, Humzah Mashkoor, 18, of Westminster, Colo., was charged in a criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Colorado with knowingly providing or attempting or conspiring to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization.
An FBI agent's narrative included in the criminal complaint alleges Mashkoor, born in the United States but raised in part in his family's native Afghanistan, desperately wanted to return to fight for the Islamic State group, better known as ISIS.
FBI agents arrested him Monday at Denver International Airport as he attempted to fly to the United Arab Emirates as part of the alleged plan to end up back in Afghanistan and meet with ISIS "brothers," according to the complaint. The bureau became aware of Mashkoor in 2021 when a social media company alerted it to a post by the defendant that expressed support for the terrorist group, the court filing states.
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Mashkoor made an appearance Friday in federal court. It wasn’t immediately clear if he had a lawyer, and the federal public defender in Colorado did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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