WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 16th December, 2022) Four individuals residing in the United States and Canada are facing charges of aiding and abetting the Islamic State terror group (banned in Russia), the US Justice Department said on Thursday.
"A criminal complaint was unsealed yesterday in Federal court in Brooklyn charging Mohammad David Hashimi, 35, of Potomac Falls, Virginia; Abdullah At Taqi, 23, of East Elmhurst, Queens, New York; Khalilullah Yousuf, 34, of Ontario, Canada; and Seema Rahman, 25, of Edison, New Jersey, with conspiring to provide material support to the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (IS)," the Justice Department said in a press release.
On December 14, the authorities arrested Hashimi, Taqi and Rahman in the US states of Virginia, New York and New Jersey, while Yousuf was arrested on the same day in Canada pursuant to a provisional arrest request by the US government, the release said.
"Taqi and Rahman made their initial appearances in federal court in Brooklyn before Chief US Magistrate Judge Cheryl Pollak. Hashimi made his initial appearance in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, before US Magistrate Judge Ivan Davis and was ordered detained pending trial," the release added.
According to court documents, Hashimi and Yousuf were members of a group chat on an encrypted social media and mobile messaging electronic communication service that facilitated communication between and among supporters of the Islamic State and other extremist groups. Yousuf provided a link to a specific Bitcoin address while another member of the chat group posted a link to a PayPal campaign.
