Florida man sentenced to 18 years in prison for supporting ISIS

US citizen pleaded guilty to attempting to provide material support for the extremist group

US soldiers in Syria. A Florida man has been jailed after he discussed using violence to oppose US military actions in the Middle East. AP

A Florida man accused in 2020 of plotting terror attacks in the US and acquiring an arsenal of weapons was sentenced to 18 years in federal prison.

The sentence against Mohammed Al-Azhari, 26, was made by a Tampa federal court on Thursday, according to court records.

The US citizen pleaded guilty in February to attempting to provide material support to the ISIS extremist group.

Al-Azhari admitted in court papers that he looked out for potential terrorism targets in the Tampa Bay area, sought to acquire several weapons and pledged an oath of allegiance to ISIS.

The FBI recorded many conversations between Al-Azhari and confidential or undercover sources in which he discussed avenging jailed ISIS extremists and using violence to oppose US military actions in the Middle East.

An FBI affidavit says Al-Azhari was recorded as expressing admiration for Omar Mateen, the deceased gunman behind the Orlando Pulse nightclub massacre in 2016.

“That’s how I want to die, to be honest,” he said in a conversation with a confidential informant, according to the FBI.

The informant then asked how many people Al-Azhari wanted to kill.

“I don’t want to take four or five, no. I want to take at least 50,” Al-Azhari replied on the recording, according to the affidavit. “You know like, brother Omar Mateen in Orlando did. He took 49 with him.”

The confidential FBI informant eventually supplied Al-Azhari with a Glock handgun and a silencer as he had requested.

He was arrested in May 2020 after taking possession of the weapons. Investigators also seized three firearms, a crossbow, dozens of rounds of ammunition, a stun gun and at least six knives belonging to Al-Azhari.

He also sought to buy a fully automatic AK-47-style weapon but was unsuccessful.

According to the affidavit, Al-Azhari conducted reconnaissance on several potential Tampa Bay targets, including beaches, parks and even the Tampa FBI field office.

He also allegedly rehearsed what he would say when carrying out an attack, some of which was intercepted by electronic surveillance.

Al-Azhari is originally from California but spent much of his life overseas and eventually embraced an extremist ideology, according to the FBI.

He was jailed for three years in Saudi Arabia after a 2015 conviction involving his advocacy for Jaysh al-Islam, an armed extremist group fighting in the Syrian conflict.

In 2018, after serving that sentence, he was deported to the US, where the FBI immediately opened a terrorism support investigation.