Mohamad Jamal Khewis, via Kurdistan24.

By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com

The American who joined ISIS and was later captured by Kurdish forces said he “made a bad decision” and no longer supports the terrorist group.

U.S. law enforcement officials plan to interview Mohamad Jamal Khewis, 26, in hopes of getting information about how ISIS operates, The Daily Mail reports.

Khewis didn’t say why he joined ISIS, but indicated that he traveled to Syria from Turkey after meeting an Iraqi girl.

“At the time I made the decision, I was not thinking straight,” Khewis told Kurdistan24. “On the way there I regretted, and I wanted to go back home after things didn’t work out and saw myself living in such an environment.”

Khewis said ISIS “does not represent a religion.”

“I don’t seem that as good Muslims.”

The Justice Department is planning on charging Khewis.

By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com

An American man accused of fighting for ISIS and detained by Kurdish forces in Iraq was not on the FBI’s radar, the Washington Post reports. 

Mohamad Khweis traveled to Turkey and Greece for vacation with friends about two months ago, his family members said.

But the Kurdish publication, Rudaw, reported that Khweis traveled to Syria from Turkey two months ago and was arrested on his way back to Turkey.

Kurdish authorities said they hot at Khweis because they believed he was a suicide bomber. Khweis surrendered.

Friends of Khweis were shocked.

“I’m like, ‘I can’t even comprehend what I’m looking at right now,’ ” friend Harrison Weinhold, 27, of Alexandria, said. “It could not have been a more normal guy.”

More than 250 Americans have joined or attempted to join extremist groups overseas, according to a congressional report release last year.

By Steve Neavling

A radical American-born Muslim who trained to fight the “evil” ways of western civilization spent thousands of dollars on prostitutes in the U.S., the Daily Mail reports, citing leaked FBI records. 

Anwar al-Awlaki, a married father of five who the Daily Mail says inspired the terrorists behind the Charlie Hebdo attacks at a training session in Yemen, hired prostitutes at least seven times in Washington D.C. area between 2001 and 2002, according to the documents.

He also was arrested twice in San Diego for soliciting.

The Daily Mail pointed out that reports placed some of the 9-11 hijackers at strip clubs for lap dances before the attacks.

A Massachusetts man who is on the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorist List is believed to be in Syria and may be employing computer science skills he learned in his American education to assistant ISIS, WCVB.com reports.

“Here is a guy that went to terrorist training camps, that expressed his desire to go and fight in Iraq against US troops. That’s somebody that needs to face justice,” said Vincent Lisi, the special-agent-in-charge of the Boston office of the FBI.

Three years before he was indicted, Ahmad Abousamra fled the country.

Authorities have few hints on his exact whereabouts and the extent to which he is assisting extremists.

By Steve Neavling

The FBI arrested a 19-year-old man at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport as he was trying to leave the country to join Islamic State, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Mohammed Hamzah Khan was boarding a plane to Vienna, where he was going to catch a flight to Istansbul, according to the FBI complaint.

Investigators said they found evidence on Khan that supported allegations that he was planning to join the extremist fighters. Among the evidence was a three-page letter in which Khan said he had an obligation to “migrate” to Islamic State and that he angry that his tax dollars were being used to kill fellow Muslims.

The arrest comes less than a week after the FBI said it has the identities of about a dozen Americans who are fighting alongside Islamic State.

We in the Muslim American community have been battling the corrupt and bankrupt ideas of cults such as Al Qaeda. Now it seems we also have to battle pseudo-experts in the FBI and the Department of Justice.

A disturbing string of training material used by the FBI and a U.S. attorney’s office came to light beginning in late July that reveals a deep anti-Muslim sentiment within the U.S. government.

If this matter is not immediately addressed, it will undermine the relationship between law enforcement and the Muslim American community — another example of the ineptitude and/or apathy undermining bridges built with care over decades. It is not enough to just call it a “very valid concern,” as FBI Director Robert Mueller told a congressional committee this month.

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The feds have indicted 13 Somalis and one Yemeni pirate in Norfolk, Va., in the tragic hijacking of a 54-foot yacht off the Somali coast that resulted in the death of four U.S. citizens last month following a five-day standoff with American authorities, the FBI said.

“This is a horrific crime, involving the armed hijacking of an American ship and the slaughter of American citizens,” said U.S. Neil H. MacBridge. “The alleged pirates will now face justice in an American courtroom.”

“These 14 men are alleged to have been willing to do anything, including killing their hostages, in a vain attempt to obtain ransom,” added FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge Janice Fedarcyk of the New York office, which investigated the case. “Modern day piracy has real and serious consequences, disrupting commerce and threatening Americans’ lives. It is a crime against the international community, a form of terrorism on the high seas.”

American authorities tried to negotiate the release of the hostages, but the pirates allegedly killed all of them before authorities made the arrests.