The FBI announce the arrest of Cholo Abdi Abdullah who was training to be a pilot and was planning to commit a 9/11-style terrorist attack. View the FBI release below and God Bless the President Trump and Director Kash Patel FBI for protecting our country!
“United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Jay Clayton, Assistant Attorney General for National Security, John A. Eisenberg, and Assistant Director in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”), Christopher G. Raia, announced today that CHOLO ABDI ABDULLAH was sentenced to life in prison by U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres following his conviction for multiple crimes that included conspiring to provide—and providing—material support to a foreign terrorist organization, and conspiring to murder U.S. nationals, commit aircraft piracy, destroy aircraft, and commit acts of terrorism transcending national boundaries. Today’s sentencing followed ABDULLAH’s conviction after a jury trial that concluded on November 4, 2024.
“Cholo Abdi Abdullah was a highly trained al-Shabaab operative who was dedicated to recreating the horrific September 11 terrorist attacks on behalf of a vicious terrorist organization,” said U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton. “Abdullah pursued his commercial pilot license at a flight school in the Philippines while conducting extensive attack planning on how to hijack a commercial plane and crash it into a building in America. As he later admitted to the FBI, he was fully prepared to die in his terrorist attack. I commend the years of outstanding investigative work of the FBI and the career prosecutors of this Office who disrupted Abdullah’s murderous plot and brought him to face justice in a U.S. court. He will now spend life behind bars, where he will not be able to harm innocent Americans.”
“Today, justice has been served,” said Assistant Attorney General for National Security John A. Eisenberg. “Abdullah, an al-Shabaab terrorist, sought to replicate the most horrific terrorist attack in our history, as he prepared to hijack a commercial airliner to take down a building on U.S. soil. We thwarted this plot due to the relentless efforts of U.S. law enforcement and thereby likely saved many innocent lives. His life sentence is a powerful reminder that those who plot attacks against the United States will be prosecuted and punished to the fullest extent of the law.”
“Al Qaeda affiliated terrorist and trained pilot Cholo Abdullah was justly punished today for his plotting to commit a 9/11-style terrorist attack,” said FBI Assistant Director in Charge Christopher G. Raia. “This case serves as reminder individuals still wish to inflict violence upon our country in the name of the terrorism. The FBI New York Joint Terrorism Task Force remains steadfast in its relentless determination to protect the American people from terrorists and their heinous desires.”
According to court documents and the evidence at trial:
al-Shabaab
Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahideen, commonly known as al-Shabaab, is a terrorist organization and al Qaeda affiliate based in Somalia and active in other locations in East Africa. Since its formation, al-Shabaab has relied on violence, including assassinations, suicide bombings, armed assaults on hotels, restaurants, beaches, and an array of civilian targets to pursue its goals. Those goals include al Qaeda’s broader objective to overthrow the U.S. government and create an Islamic caliphate. In 2012, the then-Emir of al-Shabaab swore allegiance to Ayman al Zawahiri, the then-Emir of al Qaeda who succeeded Osama bin Laden after his death in 2011, which led to al-Zawahiri announcing that al-Shabaab “will hereby merge into al Qa’ida.” On February 26, 2008, the U.S. Secretary of State designated al-Shabaab as a foreign terrorist organization (“FTO”) under Section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act, and as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist under Section 1(b) of Executive Order 13224.
Since its designation, al-Shabaab has repeatedly declared its intent to target the West and kill Americans. In April 2008, for example, in response to the U.S. designation of al-Shabaab as an FTO, al-Shabaab released a statement expressly declaring its intent to target the U.S. The next month, in May 2008, al-Shabaab publicly declared that its fighters would “hunt the U.S. government,” and threatened that governments supporting the U.S. and Ethiopia should keep their citizens out of Somalia. Consistent with its threats, al-Shabaab has repeatedly engaged in mass-casualty attacks targeting Americans.
al-Shabaab’s “Operation Jerusalem Will Never Be Judaized” Campaign
In May 2018, al-Shabaab announced that it would participate in an al Qaeda-driven campaign to retaliate against the U.S. for its decision to move its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, called “Operation ‘Al-Qudsu Lan Tuhawwad (Jerusalem will never be Judaized).’” al-Shabaab subsequently claimed, in public statements, responsibility for multiple major terrorist attacks carried out under Operation “Jerusalem Will Never Be Judaized.”
One of al-Shabaab’s attacks was the January 15, 2019 assault on the DusitD2 hotel and office complex in Nairobi, Kenya (the “DusitD2 Attack”), which included, among other things, a suicide bomber detonating an explosive device in front of a U.S. citizen, killing him; and four other armed individuals attacking the hotel grounds with AK-47s and grenades, killing more than 20 additional people. al-Shabaab claimed responsibility for the attack, and in a propaganda video explained that the DusitD2 Attack was “successful, by the grace of Allah, and resulted in the deaths of more than 50 disbelievers, including Americans and other Western nationals.”
ABDULLAH Joins the al-Shabaab Aviation Plot to Re-Create the September 11 Terrorist Attacks
ABDULLAH joined al-Shabaab in 2015 and spent approximately a year at a series of safehouses in Somalia where he worked with high-ranking al-Shabaab members and received military-style training that included how to fire an AK-47 assault rifle and how to make different sized explosives. During his training, ABDULLAH was recruited by senior al-Shabaab operatives for a “greater plan,” one that was “bigger than the fighting and the explosives.” Specifically, ABDULLAH agreed to join al-Shabaab’s international scheme to execute a mass-casualty terrorist attack, which would involve ABDULLAH training to become an airline pilot so that he could hijack a commercial plane and crash it into a building in the U.S.
Between October 2017 and July 2019, ABDULLAH became a student at a flight school in the Philippines and spent hundreds of hours training to become a commercial pilot. ABDULLAH’s flight school tuition was financed by al-Shabaab, which raises funds through an elaborate system of extortion in Somalia that it refers to as “taxation.” Images of ABDULLAH at the flight school are displayed below, with the instructors’ faces redacted:”
CASE UPDATE from @NewYorkFBI: Cholo Abdi Abdullah Sentenced to Life in Prison for Conspiring to Commit 9/11-Style Terrorist Attack on Behalf Of al-Shabaab
This week, Cholo Abdi Abdullah was sentenced to life in prison for conspiring to provide, and providing, material support to… pic.twitter.com/6DsARiL22q
— FBI (@FBI) December 23, 2025
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