Skip to footer

US: New Jersey man wanted to form small army to join ISIS

Nader Saadeh was charged Monday with attempting to provide material support to the Islamic State group.

|
Militant Website/AP/File
This undated file image posted on a militant website Jan. 14, 2014 shows fighters from the Al-Qaeda linked Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) marching through Raqqa, Syria.
  • By Associated Press

| Newark, New Jersey

A man who traveled to the Middle East last year wanted to form a small army to fight with the Islamic State group, federal authorities said Monday, weeks after the man's brother was arrested in the same alleged plot.

Nader Saadeh, 20, was charged with attempting to provide material support to the terror group and was scheduled to appear Monday in U.S. District Court in Newark. It wasn't known if he's retained an attorney who could comment on his behalf.

The former Rutherford resident's arrest comes after authorities arrested his 23-year-old brother, Alaa, and 21-year-old Samuel Rahamin Topaz of New Jersey on similar charges.

Authorities say Nader Saadeh traveled to the Middle East in May to join the Islamic State but was arrested in Jordan and had been held there in custody. It was not immediately clear when or how he returned to the United States.

He could face several decades in prison if convicted on all counts.

Between 2012 and 2013, Saadeh allegedly expressed his hatred for the United States and his wish to form a small army via electronic messages. After the Islamic State's leader declared an Islamic caliphate in Syria and Iraq in July 2014, authorities say Saadeh posted images of the group's flags on Facebook.

Prosecutors have said the Saadeh brothers had numerous meetings and exchanged text messages and phone calls with Topaz and 20-year-old Munther Omar Saleh, a New York City college student who was arrested in June and charged with conspiring to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization.

In a June 13 conversation secretly recorded by an informant, Alaa Saadeh allegedly spoke of his knowledge of his brother's plans. He also allegedly told the person what to do if the FBI began asking questions.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to US: New Jersey man wanted to form small army to join ISIS
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2015/0810/US-New-Jersey-man-wanted-to-form-small-army-to-join-ISIS
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe