US jury convicts terrorists who plotted to commit 9/11-style attack

A jury on Monday convicted 34-year-old Cholo Abdi Abdullah after he allegedly tried to carry out a terror attack inspired by the 2001 terror attacks. September 11 attacks perpetrated by al-Qaeda, the Justice Department confirmed. He planned the attack on behalf of and under the direction of the Somalia-based terrorist group Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mijahideen, better known as ‘Al Shabaab’.

Abdullah was found guilty on six counts, namely conspiracy to provide and provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization and conspiracy to murder U.S. citizens, commit aircraft piracy, destroy aircraft and commit transnational acts of terrorism.

The recently convicted Abdullah had spent months in Somalia training with AK-47 assault rifles and explosives, according to the indictment. The organization planned to hijack a commercial flight and crash it into a building in the US.

To prepare for the attack, Abdullah obtained a pilot’s license from a flight school in the Philippines and researched potential targets, searched the tallest buildings in American cities and researched how to open a cockpit door from the outside. He had also done extensive research and exchanged coded messages about the September 11 attacks.

People visit the 9/11 Memorial in New York City, US, March 21, 2023. (credit: REUTERS/AMANDA PEROBELLI)

Abdullah will appear in court for sentencing on March 10, 2025.

“The jury found that Cholo Abdi Abdullah, an associate of the terrorist organization Al Shabaab, conspired to murder Americans in a terrorist attack reminiscent of the September 11 attack on our country,” said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland. “Today’s sentencing ensures that Abdullah will spend decades in prison for his crimes. The Department of Justice will never stop identifying, investigating, and prosecuting those who would use heinous acts of violence to harm the American people. It doesn’t matter where terrorists hide. They will not avoid the long arm of the law.”

“Today, the jury returned a unanimous verdict finding Cholo Abdi Abdullah responsible for attempting to copy one of the most heinous acts of terrorism in history,” said U.S. Attorney Damian Williams for the Southern District of New York. “Abdullah trained for months with Al Shabaab in Somalia to become a deadly terrorist and then spent months in flight school preparing to hijack a commercial airliner to crash it into a building in the United States. Abdullah relentlessly pursued his goals and was on the verge of obtaining a commercial pilot’s license while conducting extensive attack planning, such as breaching the cockpit door of an airplane,” Garland added.

“I commend the tireless work of our federal law enforcement partners and this office’s professional national security prosecutors. This effort has been continued by generations of officers and prosecutors who have never relented in their efforts to bring Abdullah to justice and keep this nation safe. Thanks to their work and today’s ruling, Abdullah will now serve a lengthy sentence in federal prison.”

Why has Al Shabaab set its sights on the United States?

In 2019, following the decision to send President Donald Trump back to move the US Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, Al-Qaeda renewed attacks on the US, its citizens and their global interests under the ‘Operation Jerusalem Will Never become Jewish’. Al Shabaab has pledged allegiance to Al-Qaeda and has thus adopted the terrorist group’s mission objectives.

Osama Bin Laden, the founder of Al-Qaeda and the mastermind behind the original attacks, had also located the terrorist group in the US for reasons related to Israel. according to a letter that Bin Laden published a year after the attacks the Guardian. Nearly 3,000 people were killed in the attacks and thousands were injured.

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Al-Qaeda has become more active and established itself in recent years new training bases and Islamic schools in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan.