MIAMI.- The 26-year-old American Muhammed Momtaz Al-Azhari, who planned an attack in Florida, was sentenced this Thursday to 18 years in prison for trying to provide material support to the terrorist group Islamic State (IS).
According to the Florida Middle District Attorney’s Office, federal magistrate Thomas P. Barber determined that Al-Azhari, who pleaded guilty on February 23 of this year, remains on supervised release once he completes his sentence and that they confiscate articles related to the crime committed.
The sentenced man, who was arrested in May 2020, spent most of his life abroad and “came to adopt dogmatic Islamist/Salafist beliefs,” according to a statement from the federal prosecutor’s office.
Al-Azhari was arrested after buying a pistol and a silencer from an informant of the fbiand was in the process of purchasing an automatic rifle and high-powered silencers from an undercover agent, which he wanted to send to IS, along with money.
“Around April 2020, Al-Azhari began planning to carry out an attack in support of IS,” the Middle District Prosecutor’s Office reported, adding that at that time the sentenced man began to acquire various firearms and “explored locations potential for an attack in the Tampa Bay area.
Honeymoon Island and the FBI office in Tampa, as well as Clearwater Beach, Bayshore Boulevard and the Seminole Hard Rock Casino, are some of the places he considered.
Nearly a year earlier, dating back to at least May 2019, Al-Azhari consumed propaganda and spoke favorably of IS, an organization to which he ultimately pledged allegiance.
Al-Azhari has vowed to avenge the US imprisonment of Muslims, including IS fighters, and US military actions in the Middle East, the prosecutor’s office said.
He even rehearsed parts of the attack plan, as well as the statements he was going to make during or after the attacks he was planning.
