“He said if he failed to join ISIS abroad, he would carry out an attack on non-Muslims in the United States.”
Where did Kaan Sercan Damlarkaya learn his understanding of Islam? Where did he go to mosque? Is that mosque being attended? Or are such considerations being waved away with the all-purpose bromide that he was “radicalized on the Internet”? If he was, why was the peaceful Islam he supposedly learned in Houston not able to withstand the appeal of the supposedly twisted, hijacked Internet version?
“Homegrown Terrorist Pleads Guilty to Attempting to Support ISIS,” by Matthew Vadum, Epoch Times, July 9, 2019:
A 20-year-old Texas man who was a would-be copycat of the Boston Marathon bombers entered a guilty plea to attempting to provide material support to the overseas terrorist group ISIS by offering to be martyred and disseminating information about making bombs.
Kaan Sercan Damlarkaya, a U.S. citizen, presented the plea to District Judge Andrew Hanen in federal court in Houston, on July 8….
Damlarkaya now has “significant remorse,” his lawyer, Gary Tabakman, told the court, as reported by the Houston Chronicle. “I think the unique aspect of this case is Kaan grew up in a non-religious family,” he said. His father is Turkish and his mother is Latin American.
Tabakman’s big mistake was being overly “influenced by online content.”
“It was a dangerous fantasy, which morphed into a federal case,” he said.
It was the internet that allowed authorities to catch Damlarkaya in the act of trying to aid ISIS, also known as Islamic State and Daesh, which has been designated a terrorist organization by the United States.
From August 2017 until his arrest in December 2017, Damlarkaya tried to sign up with and support ISIS, according to the Department of Justice. He shared information with other ISIS supporters about how to use machetes, how to construct an automatic weapon, and how to make and use explosive materials.
Beginning in August 2017, Damlarkaya had online conversations with individuals he thought were fellow ISIS backers. As part of the chats, he described his plans to go overseas to fight as a soldier for ISIS in Afghanistan or Syria. In December 2017, he bought an airplane ticket to Istanbul for January, presumably to carry out his plan to join ISIS.
He said if he failed to join ISIS abroad, he would carry out an attack on non-Muslims in the United States, and that it was his “dream” to become a jihadist martyr….
When agents arrested Damlarkaya, they executed a search warrant at his residence and discovered a machete by his bed.