US man gets 20 years in jail for providing material support to Lashkar-e-Taiba

Washington, Sept 17: A US court on Monday sentenced a North Texas man to 20 years of imprisonment for providing material support to terror outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba. US District Judge Reed O'Connor sentenced Michael Kyle Sewell, 18, who was arrested in February and pleaded guilty to the conspiracy charge in May.

During the sentencing, federal prosecutors introduced evidence that Sewell's offense was consistent with a long pattern of online statements supporting violent extremism.

He had posted numerous messages threatening to attack individuals and gatherings of people who he believed were opponents of his radical beliefs. Sewell also conducted internet searches suggesting that he was investigating ways to carry out such attacks.

During a search of Sewell's home after his arrest, agents found an AR-15 style rifle, multiple magazines and a number of knives in Sewell's bedroom.

Sewell conspired with another individual to provide material support to LeT and assisted his co-conspirator with his plans to travel overseas to join the terrorist organization, Assistant Attorney General of National Security John C. Demers said.

This case demonstrates how an American citizen can be radicalized by a violent ideology based upon hate and how the actions of the FBI and our partners on the Joint Terrorism Task Force worked tirelessly to prevent violence here, and abroad. We cannot thank them enough for what they do to protect our community, US Attorney Nealy Cox said.

According to the court documents, Sewell admitted to encouraging an individual identified in the documents as cc1 to join LeT.

Sewell provided the co-conspirator, who he spoke to on social media, with contact information for an individual he believed could facilitate the co-conspirator's travel to Pakistan to join LeT.

Unbeknownst to Sewell and the co-conspirator, the facilitator was an undercover FBI employee. After providing the facilitator's contact information to the co-conspirator, Sewell coached him about how to present himself to the facilitator.

Sewell then contacted the facilitator to vouch for the co-conspirator's intentions and promised that he would kill the co-conspirator if he turned out to be a spy.

He also told the facilitator that he would recruit additional fighters to join LeT. The co-conspirator continued to communicate with the facilitator and made arrangements to travel to Pakistan to join LeT.

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Israel broadens airstrikes in Lebanon, killing displaced families without warning

News Network

November 13,2024

Beirut: The Israeli army on Tuesday continued to launch attacks against civilians in Lebanon, targeting them in several areas without prior evacuation warnings.

However, 13 airstrikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs in the space of only three hours were preceded by evacuation warnings.

The attacks caused no injuries but resulted in widespread destruction of residential buildings and commercial, medical and educational centers.

The airstrikes in southern Lebanon and Bekaa region, reaching Akkar in Lebanon’s far north, erased any hope of a near-term ceasefire settlement.

The strikes were accompanied by an announcement on Israel’s Channel 14 that “the Israeli army has expanded its operations in southern Lebanon to areas it had not reached since the beginning of the ground operation.”

About 50 days have passed since Israel intensified its hostile operations in Lebanon targeting Hezbollah. The death toll from these confrontations and attacks has passed 3,200, with more than 14,000 wounded.

For the first time, an airstrike targeted a mountainous area between Baalchmay and Aabadiyeh on the road leading to Aley, destroying a building housing displaced people.

The mayor of Baalchmay, Adham Al-Danaf, confirmed that “the airstrike targeted a residential building in the Dhour Aabadiyeh area.”

The initial toll from the Ministry of Health showed “five people killed and two injured.”

The raids that targeted Beirut’s southern suburbs for the first time in the morning, unlike nightly raids before, caused huge destruction. Those who evacuated their homes after Israeli warnings, used their phones to record the collapse of empty buildings in Sfeir, Haret Hreik, Bir Al-Abed, Mrayjeh, Laylaki and Hadath.

Israeli warplanes also targeted Tyre, where a strike on a building killed three people and injured many others, while a raid on Tefahta killed a man identified as Kifah Khalil and his family.

Attacks were widespread, with Yater and Zebqine subject to artillery shelling, a civilian being killed in Hermel, and further attacks on Bouday and an area between the towns of Srifa and Arsoun.

A raid on the town of Siddiqin killed two people and injured several others, while an attack on the Mechref farm led to one fatality and multiple injuries.

The search for those missing after an Israeli raid on the town of Ain Yaacoub in Akkar, in the northernmost part of Lebanon, continued until dawn.

During the operation, 14 bodies were retrieved, identified as those of residents displaced from the town of Arabsalim in the Iqlim Al-Tuffah area of the south, along with members of a Syrian family, a mother and three of her children. Additionally, there were 10 people in critical condition.

The targeted residence belongs to a Lebanese citizen, Hussein Hashim, who is reported to be a member of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party.

An airstrike on the town of Saksakiyeh in the Sidon region on Monday night resulted in yet another tragedy.

It appeared that the intended target was the Shoumer family, who just days before lost Hussein Amin Shoumer and his two sisters in a drone strike near Al-Awali River.

Israeli army spokesperson Avichay Adraee issued additional evacuation warnings for towns in the southern region along the Litani River, which, according to estimates from the mayors, are currently 90 percent uninhabited.

In the meantime, Hezbollah announced its continued efforts to “combat the intrusions of Israeli forces and to strike military installations and towns in the north.”

Hezbollah said in a statement that it confronted “an Israeli Hermes 450 drone in the airspace of Nabatieh and forced it to leave Lebanese airspace.”

The party also announced that it targeted “Kfar Blum settlement with a rocket salvo.”

On the Israeli side, air raid sirens sounded in areas of Upper and Western Galilee and in the town of Kiryat Shmona and its surroundings.

The Israeli army confirmed that “a drone exploded in Nesher, east of Haifa, without activating the air raid sirens,” and that “a drone launched from Lebanon crashed into a school in Gesher HaZiv, north of Nahariya.”

Israel’s Channel 13 reported the Israeli military’s assessment regarding Hezbollah’s military strength, claiming that the group currently possesses approximately 100 precision missiles, thousands of artillery shells, and hundreds of rockets. Additionally, it was highlighted that “there are around 200 Lebanese towns that remain unvisited.”

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