US Authorities Arrest Iraqi Refugees On Terrorism Charges

The Houston-area man is expected to face three federal charges including that he provided support to terrorists.

He is accused of lying to immigration authorities, telling them that he was never involved in any terror groups and had been in Turkey visiting his grandmother.

“While he represented a potential safety threat”, U.S. Attorney Benjamin B. Wagner said of Aws Mohammed Younis Al-Jayab, who was arrested in California, “there is no indication that he planned any acts of terrorism in this country”.

Law enforcement officials say there was no sign of a plot to carry out an attack in the U.S. Despite announcing the arrests in quick succession, the Justice Department did not say whether the two cases are somehow linked.

In California, Al-Jayab was arrested on Thursday on a federal charge of making a false statement involving global terrorism, the U.S. Department of Justice said.

FBI Milwaukee Division spokesman Leonard Peace says there was no threat to the public associated with the arrests.

Al-Jayab came to the US from Syria in 2012 as a refugee.

“More information will be released when the defendant makes his initial appearance tomorrow”, Angela Dodge, spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas, said. He allegedly spent three months in the war-torn country, reporting on social media that he was “fighting with various terrorist organizations, including Ansar al-Islam”. “I once again urge the President to halt the resettlement of these refugees in the United States until there is an effective vetting process that will ensure refugees do not compromise the safety of Americans and Texans”. Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick said the arrests are a reason why Texas sought to prevent refugees from resettling in the state.

The arrests in California and Texas come amid a tense atmosphere surrounding an influx of Middle Eastern refugees.

A criminal complaint unsealed Thursday accuses a Sacramento man of traveling to Syria to fight alongside terrorist organizations and lying to investigators about it.

When he was interviewed by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, he lied about his ties and travels, the complaint said. “There are serious questions about who these people really are, as evidenced by [these] events”. The charge of making false statements carries a maximum sentence of eight years in prison.

While he was living in Milwaukee, Al-Jayab allegedly began communicating with individuals in Syria about traveling there and about his past experience fighting overseas, the complaint says. He falsely denied that he had ever been a member of a rebel group or militia, that he had ever provided material support to a terrorist group, or that he had threatened to use weapons against others. On Thursday, Alabama joined Texas in its legal battle against the United States government.