Abdullahi Ahmed Abdullahi acknowledged in a plea agreement that he helped another resident of San Diego join the Islamic State group. McCain was killed in Syria while fighting alongside IS fighters.
Prosecutors also said Abdullahi provided money to send an 18-year-old cousin from Minneapolis to join IS fighters in Syria, as well as three other cousins from Edmonton, Canada.Abdullahi was detained by Canadian authorities in 2017 and extradited to the U.S. two years later. He pleaded guilty to providing material support to terrorists in 2021.
He also admitted to robbing an Edmonton jewelry store in January 2014 to raise money to fund the foreign fighters. Weeks after committing that robbery, Abdullahi sent money to McCain so he could go to Syria. He also encouraged others to commit crimes such as theft in order to collect funds to support terrorist activities, prosecutors allege.
McCain's brother, Marchello McCain, who was also from San Diego, was sentenced in 2018 to 10 years in U.S. federal prison for making false statements during several interviews with federal agents from 2014 to 2015, including denying knowing that his brother planned to fight for IS. He told the FBI that he thought his brother was going to Turkey to play music and teach English.
The U.S. announced earlier this month it killed three IS leaders in two separate operations, including a rare ground raid in a part of northeast Syria under government control. Despite their defeat in Syria in 2019, when IS lost the last sliver of land its fighters once controlled, the extremists’ sleeper cells have continued to carry out deadly attacks in Syria and Iraq. IS fighters once held large parts of the two countries.
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