A Commack man was arrested over the weekend for flying to the Middle East in attempts to join ISIS and another terrorist group twice in recent years, federal authorities said.
Elvis Redzepagic was charged Saturday at Brooklyn federal court with attempting to provide material support to designated foreign terrorist organizations.
“This defendant made numerous attempts to travel to Syria to wage violent jihad,” said Robert Capers, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York.
Prosecutors said the 26-year-old suspect communicated with an individual he believed to be the commander of a battalion in Syria and a member of ISIS or the al-Nusrah Front in 2015.
In July of that year, he traveled to Turkey and made multiple attempts to cross the border into Syria to join his contact, but he was unable to enter the war-torn country, authorities said. Then, in August 2016, he tried to enter Syria through Jordan, but was stopped and deported by Jordanian authorities.
Investigators found that Redzepagic posted messages on Facebook messages in October 2015 stating that “jihad” is when “you fight for the sake of God” and “die for the sake of Allah,” and said that he traveled to Turkey to “perform Jihad and join Jabhat Al-Nusra,” prosecutors said.
The case was investigated by the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force, Suffolk County police, Nassau County police and Port Authority police.
