Man and Woman Charged for Attempting to Join ISIS
According to a Department of Justice (DOJ) press release dated April 1, 2021, James Bradley, aka Abdullah, and his wife Arwa Muthana were arrested at a seaport in New Jersey while attempting to travel overseas to join the Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham (ISIS). Bradley allegedly expressed his support for ISIS and planned to travel to the Middle East in order to learn how to carry out a terrorist attack. Both he and his wife were planning to travel by cargo ship to the Middle East.
Both Bradley and Muthana are charged with one count of attempting to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization and one count of conspiring to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization. According to court documents, Bradley expressed his intent to join ISIS to an undercover agent and said ISIS was good for Muslims because it was establishing a caliphate.
Furthermore, the court documents allege that he also gave the undercover agent $1000 to travel to the Middle East and told the agent he had given “bay’ah,” an Arabic term meaning the oath of allegiance, to Abu Ibrahim al-hashimi al-Qurashi, the current leader of ISIS. After Bradley’s wife Muthana was arrested, she waived her Miranda rights and stated that she was willing to fight and kill Americans if it was for Allah.
Assistant Attorney General John C. Demers for the Justice Department’s National Security Division said of the crime, “The threat of terrorism at home and abroad remains, and the National Security Division is committed to holding accountable those who would provide material support to foreign terrorist organizations. I want to thank the agents, analysts, and prosecutors who are responsible for this case.”
Commissioner Dermot Shea of the New York Police Department explained, “James Bradley and his wife Arwa Muthana’s alleged determination to join ISIS and carry out terrorism against Americans overseas or here in New York is well documented in this multi-year investigation. It is yet another example of the effectiveness of the undercover operatives, detectives and analysts of the NYPD’s Intelligence Bureau working in seamless coordination with our partners at the FBI and the Joint Terrorism Task Force.”