Iraqi Refugee in Texas Pleads Guilty to Joining ISIS

An Iraqi-born refugee who is also a citizen of Palestine pleaded guilty to providing material support and swearing allegiance to ISIS.

On Monday, Omar Faraj Saeed Al Hardan went before U.S. District Judge Lynn N. Hughes in Houston, where he pleaded guilty as part of an agreement with the Justice Department. Judge Hughes accepted the plea and set his sentencing hearing for a later date.

Court records obtained by Breitbart Texas revealed that Al Hardan was born in Iraq on December 25, 1991 and is a Palestinian national. Before moving to the United States, Al Hardan spent time at refugee camps in Jordan and Iraq. The convicted terrorist moved to America on November 2, 2009 and by August 22, 2011 had become a legal permanent resident.

According to prosecutors, Al Hardan applied to become a naturalized citizen in 2014 and lied during the process. In one of his forms known as the N-400, the refugee claimed to not have any military or weapons training when he had received instruction with automatic weapons. Another charge revealed that Al Hardan claimed to not have any affiliation with terrorist organizations–however the indictment notes that he was a member of al-Nusrah and ISIS.

According to information provided to Breitbart Texas by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, in April 2014, federal agents began investigating Al Hardan who had been communicating with a California man whom he understood was associated with the Islamic terrorist organization known as the Al-Nusrah Front. In those conversations, the individual told Al Hardan that he previously traveled to Syria to fight for Al-Nusrah and discussed plans to return with Al Hardan.

Al Hardan also developed a relationship with a government informant with whom he talked about joining ISIS. During their talks, Al Hardan told the informant that he taught himself how to make remote detonators by accessing online training videos and showed-off a circuit board that he built to be used as a transmitter for a bomb. 

According to the plea agreement presented in court, on Nov. 5, 2014, Al Hardan took an oath of loyalty to ISIS and spent time training with an automatic rifle.

Iraqi Refugee in Houston joins ISIS by ildefonso ortiz on Scribd

Ildefonso Ortiz is an award winning journalist with Breitbart Texas. He co-founded the Cartel Chronicles project and you can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook.