A Jordanian man arrested last month in Houston on a federal firearm possession charge had spoken of “martyrdom,” a federal judge said in a court order, and was “plotting to attack a Jewish gathering,” a law enforcement source told CNN.
Sohaib Abuayyash, 20, who is in the United States on an expired nonimmigrant visa, made “statements to others that support the killing of individuals of particular religious faiths,” and “referenced an event in Houston for members of a particular religious group,” according to a federal court judge who ordered the man be detained pending trial.
Details, including the specific target, time or place for the gathering, were not immediately clear in the court documents.
Abuayyash’s attorney declined to comment to CNN.
The arrest comes at a time when the country is seeing an increase in tense rhetoric and protests around the war between Israel and Hamas, the Palestinian militant group, with the head of the FBI warning that antisemitism in the country is reaching “historic levels.”
The FBI began investigating Abuayyash in August after agents conducting “open-source research” saw video of him firing multiple firearms, including AR-style rifles, on sociial media, according to a redacted probable cause affidavit filed on October 19 in the US District Court for the Southern District of Texas.
Abuayyash applied for asylum in the US after his nonimmigrant visa expired in 2019, according to the affidavit. He’s authorized to work in the US until August 2025, and is not allowed to “possess or use firearms or ammunition,” it states.
The affidavit also says Abuayyash “has been in direct contact with others who share a radical mindset, has been conducting physical training, and has trained with weapons to possibly commit an attack.”
The affidavit provides little detail on the investigation into Abuayyash.
Sohaib Abuayyash is seen in this screengrab from a video on social media.
United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas
But in an order of detention pending trial document filed on October 24, US Magistrate Judge Christina A. Bryan wrote that Abuayyash “has viewed specific and detailed content posted by radical organizations on the internet including lessons on how to construct bombs or explosive devices; and that Defendant has made statements to others that support the killing of individuals of particular religious faiths.”
“In his communications with another individual about martyrdom, the Defendant referenced an event in Houston for members of a particular religious group,” the judge said.
Abuayyash was “plotting to attack a Jewish gathering,” a law enforcement source told CNN.
Since the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel, the FBI’s 56 field offices have been “leveraging every tool at our disposal to protect the American people from extremist violence,” one senior FBI official told CNN’s Josh Campbell last month, including by “monitoring sensitive collection.”
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/11/02/us/sohaib-abuayyash-jordanian-arrested-houston/index.html
