A Kenyan national was charged in a federal court in the United States on Wednesday, December 16, with attempting to hijack aircraft to stage a 9/11 style attack targeting skyscrapers.
According to the federal prosecutors, Cholo Abdi Abdullahi conducted operations on behalf of the East African terror group, Al Shabaab.
They argued that he took orders from the commander in the terror group and had planned to hijack a plane and crash it into a major skyscraper.
A similar attack in the American city of New York left 3,000 people dead and tens of thousands with life-changing injures in what is infamously known as the 9/11 attack.
The prosecutors pointed out that the Al Shabaab commander was the culprit behind the January 2019 attack on the Dusit D2 Hotel in Nairobi that claimed the lives of over 20 people.
The 30-year-old suspect denied the six counts of charges filed against him and the judge ordered that he be held in custody without bail.
Abdullahi was arrested in the Phillipines in July 2019 over a scheme to stage a deal terror attack on American soil.
An international newslet also revealed that the suspect had been caught with a bomb and bomb-making equipment by the time of his arrest.
Speaking in court, a Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) Assistant Director-in-Charge William Sweeney decried that some extremists were still determined to cause terror in the United States.
"Nearly 20 years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, there are those who remain determined to conduct terror attacks against United States citizens. Abdullah, we allege, is one of them," he stated.
He further alleged that Abdullahi spent years in training, going through flight school in order to obtain a pilot's license overseas.
This, he claimed, was meant for the purpose of causing a mass-casualty incident within the US borders.
Acting Manhattan U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss, in a statement, echoed Sweeney's sentiments
"This chilling callback to the horrific attacks of September 11, 2001, is a stark reminder that terrorist groups like al Shabaab remain committed to killing U.S. citizens and attacking the United States," she noted.
Abdullahi currently faces a minimum sentence of 20 years or a possible life sentence.
