Jan 8, 2016 5 min read

SACRAMENTO, Calif. – An Iraqi man bragged about his experience fighting in Syria and the skills he developed as a teenage insurgent as he urged a fellow Iraqi refugee in the United States to join him in what both hoped would be martyrdom, according to documents filed in federal court.

Aws Mohammed Younis Al-Jayab, 23, of Sacramento described his experience fighting against Syrian government soldiers in heroic terms and promised in 2013 he would train Omar Faraj Saeed Al Hardan of Houston in how to use weapons and sneak into Syria to join the fight, according to an FBI affidavit unsealed in federal court in Sacramento.

The two Iraqi-born Palestinians used social media to discuss their plans, according to federal authorities. The communications provided the link that led to terrorism-related charges against the men this week.

Al-Jayab faces up to eight years in prison on charges of traveling to Syria to fight and lying to U.S. authorities about his travels. Al-Hardan is charged with attempting to provide material support for terrorists.

There is no allegation the two were planning an attack in the United States, nor is it clear how the two met online.

The criminal complaint against Al-Jayab recounts a series of communications with different people, none of whom is identified. One called “Individual I” is Al Hardan, according to Lauren Horwood, a spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney in Sacramento.

Federal authorities said Al-Jayab emigrated from Syria to the United States as a refugee in October 2012, living in Tucson, Arizona, and Milwaukee until November 2013, when he went back overseas to fight. He returned to the United States in January 2014 and lived in Sacramento.

Al-Jayab and Al Hardan communicated in April 2013, and Al Hardan expressed interested in fighting in Syria.

“O God, grant us martyrdom for your sake while engaged in fighting and not retreating; a martyrdom that would make you satisfied with us,” Al-Jayab wrote to Al Hardan, according to court documents.

Al-Jayab said he already fought in Syria, starting when he turned 16 years old, according to messages between the two men quoted in court documents. He promised to provide weapons training to Al Hardan and advised him on how he would be assigned to the battlefield once he arrived in Syria.

“We will make your abilities very strong,” he promised Al Hardan.

“God willing, you will have your chance to shoot,” he added in a later message. “The most shots I made with it in my life was in the biggest battle I participated in. Seven magazines in one breath. … Just shooting, spraying, spraying.”

He recounted how he helped execute three Syrian government soldiers, according to the document, including one soldier who was so frightened he forgot to unlock the safety on his rifle and was cut down with shots to the chest and head.

Authorities said Al-Jayab fought twice in Syria, including with a group later affiliated with Islamic State between November 2013 and January 2014. He told authorities he traveled to Turkey to visit his grandmother, which prosecutors said was a lie that could draw him up to eight years in prison.

Al-Jayab’s attorney, Ben Galloway of the federal defender’s office, has not responded to telephone and emailed messages.

Court documents rely heavily on Al-Jayab’s social media communication, much of which is in Arabic, and travel records and Internet IP addresses. Prosecutors did not provide additional information.

Al-Jayab also criticized Islamic State in several messages for killing Muslims, although he later described fighting alongside the group.

“If it weren’t for the State’s bloodletting, I would have been the first one to join it,” he said, according to the FBI, although.

Al Hardan, 24, made his initial appearance in Houston federal court Friday.

Prosecutors charged Al Hardan with attempting to support the Islamic State and accused him of providing resources to the group beginning around May 2014. Court documents did not provide specifics about the allegations.

He faces up to 25 years in federal prison if convicted.

“O God please do not deprive me, my brothers, and my brother Aws from the blessings of Jihad in Syria,” Al Hardan replied in one message from Al-Jayab.

Yet there is no indication that he actually traveled to Syria.

Al Hardan, who speaks Arabic, used an interpreter to tell U.S. Magistrate Judge Mary Milloy he understands the charges. He told the judge he lives in a Houston-area apartment, is married and has a child.

He was appointed an attorney, David Adler, who did not immediately return a telephone call or email seeking comment.

Al Hardan’s brother said his sibling told him Friday in a telephone call from the Federal Detention Center in Houston that he is innocent of the charges he faces.

Saeed Faraj Saeed Al Hardan of Houston said their family had always felt that “ISIS is no good” and “ISIS is not Muslim.”

Federal officials say arrests of two of Al-Jayab’s brothers in Milwaukee and a cousin in California grew out of the Sacramento investigation but are not related to national security. Younis Mohammed Al Jayab and Ahmad Waleed Mahmood appeared in federal court in Milwaukee on Friday to hear the allegations against them in a criminal complaint.

Two of Al-Jayab’s brothers and a cousin are charged with conspiring to transport/receive stolen cellphones. They weren’t asked to enter pleas and were ordered released without cash bond. It wasn’t clear whether they would be freed Friday or held over the weekend.

A federal prosecutor says a third man named in the complaint, Samer Mohammed Al Jayab, was arrested in California.