In early 2014, Asher Khan of Spring, Texas, came up with a life-changing plan.
Mr. Khan and a friend agreed to meet in Turkey and then cross together into Syria with the assistance of a person who helped facilitate the flow of fighters to the Islamic State organization.
Khan, 20, was living with relatives in Australia at the time. The friend, Abdullah Ali, 20, was in Texas. The friend followed through on the plan and became a fighter in Syria.
Khan made it from Australia to Turkey, but before he could meet his friend, he received an urgent message that his mother was gravely ill. The message was a ruse by his family to trick Khan into returning home to Texas.
It worked.
Khan returned to the family home near Houston in late February 2014.
Later, in October, the FBI began investigating Khan’s friend.
Digging deeper, the agents discovered communications between Ali and Khan discussing their plan to join the Islamic State and to recruit others.
The agents then expanded their investigation to Khan, who since returning to the US was taking college courses and working as a pizza delivery driver.
Khan was also teaching an Islamic program for young people at the local mosque, but his political views had raised suspicions among mosque leaders.
The question for agents was whether Khan had abandoned his extremist beliefs or was simply pretending to hold moderate beliefs.
In studying communications related to Khan’s Facebook page, federal agents identified a young woman whom Khan had known since their freshman year in high school.
The two had engaged in lengthy conversations in early 2014 in which the woman tried repeatedly to talk Khan out of his expressed desire to join the Islamic State group. He told the woman that he felt compelled to travel to Syria because his Muslim “brothers and sisters” were being “raped, tortured, and killed.”
The woman suggested there were other ways he could help them, ways that did not violate federal law.
Then Khan revealed his ultimate reason for wanting to join the Islamic State. “I wanna die a Shaheed [martyr],” he confided.
He said he was “looking forward to dying in Allah’s cause and meeting Allah.”
In a later discussion, Khan revealed to the young woman the apparent source of his desire to fight and die in the cause of Allah. He asked her to watch a video sermon delivered by US-born militant cleric Anwar Al-Awlaki.
“I love him,” Khan said of the preacher. “May Allah give him the highest place in jannah [heaven].”
“I’ve never heard any of his lectures,” the woman replied.
“He has THE BEST LECTURES,” Khan replied. “I wish I could inject everything I know about him into you. And create the same love I have for him in you.”
Those conversations took place in early 2014, before he traveled to Turkey and before he decided to return to the US.
Nonetheless, federal agents arrested Khan in May on charges that he conspired to provide material support to the Islamic State by attempting to travel to Syria to join the group, and by helping a friend from the US successfully join the Islamic State group as a fighter.
Since Khan’s arrest, family members have said the charges against him are unwarranted. While it is true that he considered joining the Islamic State group, he ultimately decided not to do so. He is not a radical, they insist.
Federal officials are taking no chances.
There is no debate about Khan’s friend, Ali. He died fighting on behalf of the Islamic State group in Syria.
