American who joined IS pleads guilty to terrorism charge
Omer Kuzu faces up to 20 years in federal prison.
A Dallas man who joined the Islamic State (IS) has pleaded guilty to conspiring to provide material support to terrorism, the US Department of Justice said today.
Omer Kuzu was captured in Syria by the US-partnered Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in March 2019 and then handed over to FBI custody. Kuzu's sentencing is scheduled for January and faces up to 20 years in federal prison.
"This defendant, an American citizen radicalized on American soil, pledged allegiance to a brutal terrorist group and traveled halfway across the world to enact its agenda," Erin Nealy Cox, US attorney for the Northern District of Texas, said in a statement. "I am gratified Mr. Kuzu faced justice in an American court."
According to court documents, Kuzu admitted traveling from Texas to Istanbul, Turkey, with his brother in October 2014. From southeastern Turkey, he was smuggled across the Syrian border in an "ISIS taxi" and stayed in several "waiting houses" before making it to Iraq’s second-largest city of Mosul. IS is also known as ISIS.
