A 44-year-old man from Lackawanna, New York, near Buffalo, was arrested this week suspected of providing material support and resources to the Islamic terror organization ISIS. Federal agents have been tracking Arafat Nagi since 2012 as he has traveled to Turkey and Yemen on multiple occasions.
Officials believe Nagi, who has family in Yemen, was able to enter Syria undetected and join with ISIS operatives, states the Center for Security Policy. Before his travels, the man purchased body armor, combat clothing, a tactical vest, night vision goggles, and two shahada (Islamic Creed) flags. Nagi's messages on Twitter praised ISIS and its caliphate Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
This is not Nagi's first run-in with the law, either. In 2013, he was arrested for threatening to behead his then 19-year-old daughter. A WIVB 4 report states that Nagi pleaded guilty to holding a military-style knife to his daughter's neck and saying, "I’m going to behead you and shoot you." The penalty for this "harassment" charge only got him separated from his daughter for a year.
And going further back to 2002, Nagi's name regularly surfaced when the FBI was investigating what became known as the Lackawanna 6 -- described as a group of six Yemeni-American men who were associated with al Qaeda and operated as jihadist recruiters. According to the Center for Security Policy, the Lackawanna 6 were also tied in with the Tablighi Jamaat Islamic movement, which though non-violent, is used as a conduit for violence as the sect calls for Muslims to get back to their orthodox roots. It is stated that the movement's U.S. headquarters are in Queens, New York.
Nagi's attorney is defending his client saying, "He's an American citizen, born here, and had no intention to engage in any terrorist activity." They will enter a not guilty plea on this latest charge.
Friends of Nagi are blaming his arrest on "Islamaphobia" and say he's just "talking smack" on social media. But one Lackawanna councilman, Abdul Noman, recalled the soccer enthusiast he watched as a boy grow up into a man who increasingly isolated himself:
He was just not the same person everybody knew. If he committed a crime, he deserves what he got. This is the country that we love and we’re supposed to stand by it. I mean if he’s guilty with what he did, then he should pay the price for it.
