Two Somali refugees arrested for trying to join ISIS in Egypt.

Department of Justice. The Hill.

Two Somali refugees have been arrested after trying to board a flight to Egypt and joining the ISIS terror group. The Hill. Ahmed Mahad Mohamed and Abdi Yemani Hussein were arrested after they informed an undercover FBI agent that they wanted to join ISIS. They had bought plane tickets to Egypt and were planning on joining the terror groups Sinai Province. Both men were refugees but Mohamed had secured permanent resident status at the time of his arrest. Both men were also willing to carry out attacks in the United States if their plan to get to Egypt failed. 

Somali refugees arresed in Tucson on way to Egypt. They were in touch with an agent posing as a terrorist. One of them stated, “The best wake up call is Islamic State to get victory or another 9/11.” Get smart people! #MAGA #KAG @foxandfriends

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 30, 2019

My Comment:
This is a minor story that became a big one due to the lack of media coverage. Outside of local coverage and conservative media, this story hasn't gotten any play at all. President Trump changed that by tweeting out the above message which at least forced CNN to cover it, but many of the other big media companies have not.

I think the main reason for that is the fact that these men were refugees. The media doesn't want to point out that we gave these men a second chance at life in a country that's much better than Somalia and they repaid that generosity with betrayal to one of our country's greatest enemies.

Plus there is the fact that they just spent several weeks defending a Somali refugee from withering criticism. Ilhan Omar came into America the same way as these two men and to point that out could hurt her popularity, which is something the US media can't abide.

As for the plot itself it seems like another pretty obvious case of potential terrorists not learning to keep their mouths shut. In theory, getting a flight to Egypt should be extremely easy. All you have to do is buy the tickets and get on board.

Joining ISIS itself might be a bit more difficult as I doubt you can just walk up to an ISIS compound and sign up. But trying to talk to people in America about it seems like the perfect way to be caught by the FBI. I am sure that is what happened in this case.

It's fairly fortunate that this is how it played out as it sounds like these two men were prepared to commit terrorism in the United States if their plan to fly to Egypt failed. Though these two seemed pretty damn stupid it doesn't take a smart person to ram people with a truck or set fire to a building. If they hadn't been arrested it's very possible that they could have killed some people. Thankfully that won't happen now.

As for Egypt, let this be a reminder that they still have a major problem with ISIS. It's one of the few countries where ISIS still has major forces, along with Afghanistan and Nigeria. It is not surprising to me that it's now the main place where recruits show up. Afghanistan and Nigeria are both to remote and Syria and Iraq just don't have the organization anymore to take up recruits. In Egypt though, they can still take people in.

Egyptian ISIS is also one of the more dangerous factions of the terror group, responsible for some of the worst attacks. In addition to their many attacks on Egyptian Coptic Christians, they also were responsible for one of the deadliest attacks by ISIS, the downing of Metrojet Flight 9268. They are an extremely dangerous group and one that does not need to get new recruits, even if the quality of the recruits is lacking.