Were Islamic State Wannabes From Brooklyn Motivated By The FBI's Paid Informant?

A paid confidential informant was instrumental in building a case against three Brooklyn men who were arrested yesterday and accused of plotting to join the Islamic State in Syria or commit domestic acts of terror if they failed. The FBI first became interested in the men last August after Abdurasul Hasanovich Juraboev, 24, posted a threat to kill Obama on an Uzbek-language message board sympathetic to ISIL. Investigators tracked Juraboev to his Midwood home through his IP address and interviewed him twice, during which time he bizarrely confirmed that he wanted to kill Obama, among other things.

Juraboev allegedly told investigators that his friend, Akhror Saidakhmetov 19, shared his extremist views, and a month later the FBI dispatched a paid confidential informant to befriend the men at a Brooklyn mosque. According to the criminal complaint, the two suspects perceived the informant as "an older and more experienced person," and over the next six months he apparently encouraged the suspects to make their idle fantasies a reality.

It appears that the FBI's informant convinced both men that he intended to travel to Syria with them and join the Islamic State, and although neither suspect had the means to do so, Juraboev obtained the money to buy a plane ticket after becoming close with the undercover informant. At the end of 2014, he purchased a plane ticket to Istanbul. Saidakhmetov allegedly obtained money to buy a ticket from Abror Habibov, who owned the cellphone repair kiosk where he worked.

Habibov was also arrested yesterday. According to the criminal complaint, he was also trying to help "another brother who appears to be smarter" than Saidakhmetov. This "smarter" brother appears to be the confidential informant.

All three suspects were charged with providing material support to a terror group. Saidakhmetov's lawyer, Adam Perlmutter, told the Times that the case “highlights everything that is wrong in how the Justice Department approaches these cases. He was worked over extensively by a confidential informant." It's unclear how much the confidential informant was paid, but some FBI stings have paid informants to the tune of $100,000.

A 2011 investigation by Mother Jones raised troubling questions about the use of paid confidential informants in terrorism investigations, suggesting that in many cases the undercover informants entrap suspects. "The problem with the cases we're talking about is that defendants would not have done anything if not kicked in the ass by government agents," Martin Stolar, a lawyer who represented a man caught in a 2004 sting involving the Herald Square subway station, told Mother Jones. "They're creating crimes to solve crimes so they can claim a victory in the war on terror."

In 2011, the NYPD used a "confidential informant" to build a case against Jose Pimentel, a then-27-year-old man who was accused of building a pipe bomb to use in a terrorist attack. Pimentel, who reportedly tried to circumcise himself on a prior occasion, was not seen as a threat by the FBI. But the NYPD heralded it as a major counterrorism victory, and four years later Pimentel pleaded guilty to a lesser charge to avoid a life sentence.

"This is real,” NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton said yesterday. “This is the concern about the lone wolf.”

At the Midwood apartment building where Saidakhmetov lived, reporters informed a woman believed to be his mother that her son had been arrested. "No, it can’t be!” she screamed. “It’s not true!"