A Minneapolis man, identified as Abdisatar Ahmed Hassan, has been accused of attempting to provide material support to the Islamic State group, federal prosecutors revealed on Friday. The 22-year-old, who expressed admiration for the truck attack in New Orleans that claimed 14 lives, was charged with trying to join the extremist organization. Hassan, a naturalized U.S. citizen, allegedly made two unsuccessful attempts in December to travel from Minnesota to Somalia with the intention of joining the Islamic State group. Despite claiming he was visiting family in Somalia, it was determined that he had no relatives there.
Prosecutors stated that Hassan publicly endorsed the group through multiple social media posts and praised an individual named Shamsud-Din Jabbar on TikTok following the New Orleans attack. Jabbar, a 42-year-old Texas native and U.S. Army veteran, reportedly declared allegiance to the Islamic State group and expressed intentions to cause harm before driving a pickup truck into a crowd of New Year’s revelers on Bourbon Street, where he was subsequently shot dead by the police.
In a troubling development, Hassan was also seen driving with an Islamic State group flag inside his vehicle, as captured in a video he posted online last week. On Thursday, he was taken into custody after being observed driving with the flag once again. Authorities were made aware of Hassan’s online activities last May when New York police reported his social media support for the Somali group al-Shabab. Further investigation revealed propaganda videos from al-Shabab and the Islamic State group on Hassan’s TikTok and Facebook accounts, in addition to his communication with a Facebook account that encouraged Somali speakers to travel and fight for the Islamic State group.
The FBI closely monitored Hassan’s movements, particularly on December 13, when he attempted to check in for a flight to Somalia at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport but was turned away due to inadequate travel documents. Another unsuccessful attempt was made on December 29, when he boarded a flight to Chicago but missed his connecting flight to Ethiopia after extensive questioning by Customs and Border Protection officers. He eventually returned to Minneapolis.
Hassan’s case is not an isolated incident in Minnesota, as several individuals from the state have been suspected of joining or attempting to join the Islamic State group over the years. In 2016, nine Minnesota men were sentenced on federal charges related to conspiring to join the group, while another Minnesotan who fought for the organization in Iraq received a 10-year prison sentence in June of last year.
