Fourth alleged IS suspect arrested in NY

NEW YORK: A fourth US citizen has been arrested in the greater New York
area in less than a week on allegations of supporting the Islamic State
extremist group, officials said. Samuel Rahamin Topaz, 21, from Fort Lee,
New Jersey, was charged with conspiracy to provide material support to
the IS group, which has declared a caliphate based in Iraq and Syria. He
faces 15 years in prison if convicted and was remanded without bail after
being arrested at home on Wednesday, prosecutors said. Court papers
allege he was in close contact with Munther Omar Saleh, a 20-year-old
student from New York who was arrested last Saturday after trying to stab
an FBI surveillance officer. The FBI accused Saleh of trying to recruit Topaz,
who was allegedly making plans to travel to join the IS group in the Middle
East. The pair allegedly met up at a Manhattan subway station a few
blocks from the World Trade Centre on May 31. Prosecutors in New York
have accused Saleh of planning to carry out a bomb attack in the city.
Topaz told a friend that they promised him US$7,000 a week and four
wives, possibly in Iraq, and cited this as reason not to enroll at community
college, court papers show. He allegedly posted selfies on Facebook
dressed in militant-style head garb and wrote about his intention to go to
Jordan, which prosecutors called a cover story for travel to IS-controlled
territory. Court papers released on Thursday listed two other coconspirators, both of whom were dual US-Jordanian citizens. The first, a
20-year-old, left the country on May 5, flying from New York to Jordan on
May 5 after browsing online extremist propaganda. The second was an
unidentified 23-year-old in New Jersey. Topaz allegedly told a friend, when
asked what he thought of IS that it was not bad because they are
protecting what they believe in and that news in the United States is
corrupted. After his arrest, prosecutors said he confessed to sympathising
with the IS cause. He had watched the groups videos and discussed plans
to reach it. Prosecutors in Boston announced later Thursday that
Massachusetts man David Wright, 25, and Rhode Island resident Nicholas
Rovinski, 24, were also indicted with conspiracy to provide material
support to IS. Wright was also charged with conspiracy to obstruct and
with obstructing justice. They are due to appear in court on Friday They
allegedly conspired with Usaamah Rahim, 26, Wrights uncle, who was
shot and killed after lunging toward Boston police and FBI agents with a
knife outside a CVS in Boston on June 2. The trio are accused of conspiring
to plan deadly IS-inspired attacks inside the United States, including the
beheading of a woman in New York, whom US media has identified as
Pamela Geller, an anti-Islam blogger. US intelligence officials warned in
February that more than 20,000 volunteers from around the world,
including more than 150 Americans, had gone to Syria to link up with
extremists.--AFP