An American jihadist desperate to fly to Syria to fight for Islamic State tried to fool US passport officials by saying he was planning a family trip to Australia, the FBI alleges.
Abdirizak Mohamed Warsame, 20, of Eagan, Minnesota, has been charged in the US with conspiring to provide material support to Islamic State.
On April 16, 2014, Warsame allegedly applied for an expedited US passport, asking the passport officer if he could receive it the same day, but his application was rejected.
Warsame was the 10th man charged for what US authorities described as a broad conspiracy to provide support to IS.
"The passport officer was concerned because Warsame's written application stated that he needed a passport for a family trip to Britain that was planned for July; however in the passport office Warsame stated that the family was going to Australia, not Britain," FBI special agent Vadym Vinetsky wrote in a criminal complaint.
Warsame, who worked as a security guard and was arrested last week in Minnesota, was allegedly elected the "emir" of a group of young Somali-US men and encouraged those with passports and money to travel to Syria.
The group allegedly met to watch "propaganda videos that glorified religious violence", discuss their aspirations to join IS and mulled different ways to get to Syria, including flying out of Mexico.
US law enforcement intensely scrutinised the group, stopped some from boarding flights out of the US and have turned several members into prosecution witnesses.
Warsame has been refused bail.
