Cholo Abdi Abdullah, 35, of Kenya, has been sentenced to life without parole for plotting a 9/11-style attack in the United States, following his conviction for conspiring to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization and to murder U.S. nationals. "Abdullah pursued his commercial pilot license at a flight school in the Philippines while conducting extensive attack planning on how to hijack a commercial plane and crash it into a building in America," according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.
The plot, linked to his involvement with al-Shabaab, an al Qaeda affiliate in Somalia, was uncovered after years of investigation, preventing what could have been catastrophic attacks. U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton said, "I commend the years of outstanding investigative work of the FBI and the career prosecutors of this Office who disrupted Abdullah’s murderous plot and brought him to face justice in a U.S. court," as reported by the U.S. Attorney's Office.
Abdullah, an al-Shabaab terrorist, sought to replicate the most horrific terrorist attack in our history, as he prepared to hijack a commercial airliner to take down a building on U.S. soil, said Assistant Attorney General for National Security John A. Eisenberg. Court documents show that Abdullah acquired a pilot’s license, researched cockpit security, and was willing to sacrifice his life to carry out the attack. The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Nicholas S. Bradley and Jonathan L. Bodansky, with support from the FBI New York Joint Terrorism Task Force, the NYPD, and other U.S. and international agencies. FBI Assistant Director in Charge Christopher G. Raia said the agencies’ efforts helped prevent the planned attack, as stated by the U.S. Attorney's Office.
