A Florida man was sentenced to eighteen years in jail and a lifetime of supervised release, pleading guilty to the charge of attempting to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) said Wednesday.
Muhammed Momtaz Al-Azhari, 26, is “a United States citizen who spent most of his life abroad and came to embrace dogmatic, Islamist/Salafist beliefs,” according to a DoJ statement. Al-Azhari was deported to the United States in 2018 following release from a Saudi Arabian prison, where he had reportedly been serving a “sentence for supporting terrorism in Syria.” (RELATED: Authorities Arrest American Teenager, Accuse Him Of Fundraising For ISIS)
ISIS supporter who planned Tampa Bay attack sentenced Muhammed Momtaz Al-Azhari pleaded guilty earlier this year to trying to provide guns, money to ISIS. https://t.co/6jwSV5G49f
— Paul Paglia (@JrSoulPtrl) July 13, 2023
Following his deportation, Al-Azhari was seemingly preparing an attack in the Tampa Bay area in support of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), per the statement. Al-Azhari also reportedly spoke favorably about ISIS and consumed their propaganda, eventually pledging his allegiance through an Islamic oath.
He also began to reportedly collect various firearms and was eventually arrested by an undercover Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) employee for illegally possessing a firearm and an unregistered silencer in May 2020, per the statement.
Al-Azhari’s sentencing follows that of a Houston, Texas, man for a similar charge on June 29.
Kaan Sercan Damlarkaya, 23, was sentenced to 13 years and nine months in prison followed by a lifetime of supervised release for attempting to provide material support to ISIS, according to a separate DoJ statement.
“In addition to wanting to join ISIS, Damlarkaya also provided information to ISIS supporters about the use of machetes, homemade construction of an automatic weapon and how to build and use bombs,” the statement noted.