A US citizen was sentenced to more than five years in prison for attempting to provide material support to the Islamic State (IS). Alison Marie Sheppard of Florida purchased 10 mobile phones and arranged to ship them to undercover officers posing as IS supporters, according to a press release by the US Justice Department. Sheppard believed the phones would be sent to the Middle East for IS operatives to use as bomb detonators.
She also provided IS instructional material on how to travel to Syria to a person she believed was a sympathizer with the extremist group. That person was later caught by the FBI and provided information to investigators. Sheppard also told an undercover law enforcement officer that she had pledged loyalty to IS’ supposed caliph, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who died in a US Special Operations raid in northwest Syria late last year. Sheppard, who went by the name Aiisha Abdullah, pled guilty on May 17.