A Pakistan-born US teenager on Friday pleaded guilty to conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists and offering assistance to a woman called "Jihad Jane" who was planning to wage a jihad in Europe.
A resident of Maryland, 18-year-old Mohammad Hassan Khalid, aka Abdul Ba'aree Abd Al-Rahman Al-Hassan Al-Afghani Al-Junoobi W'at-Emiratee, was charged with one count of conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists in a superseding indictment returned on October 20.
Khalid faces a potential sentence of 15 years in prison and a $250,000 fine at sentencing. His co-defendant, Ali Charaf Damache, aka Theblackflag, 46, an Algerian who resided in Ireland, was charged with conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists and attempted identity theft to facilitate an act of international terrorism.
Damache is in custody in Ireland and is being prosecuted there on an unrelated criminal charge.
Khalid had secured a full scholarship to the prestigious Johns Hopkins University before he was arrested last summer by the FBI and put in federal custody at 17.
Prosecutors stated in the US District court in Philadelphia that Khalid was only 15 years old when he began swapping messages with Colleen LaRose alias Jihad Jane, a Pennsylvania woman who pleaded guilty to planning a European jihad and for conspiring to murder a Swedish cartoonist.
According to the plea memorandum, indictment and other court documents filed in the case, from about 2008 through July 2011, Khalid and Damache conspired with LaRose, Jamie Paulin Ramirez and others to provide material support and resources, including logistical support, recruitment services, financial support, identification documents and personnel, to a conspiracy to wage a jihad in Europe.
