Terrorist convicted for planning 9/11-inspired takeover of US flight

A jury convicted on Monday  Cholo Abdi Abdullah, 34, after he allegedly sought to commit a terror attack inspired by the 2001 September 11 attacks committed by Al-Qaeda, the Justice Department confirmed. He planned the attack on behalf of and under the direction of the Somalia-based terror group Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mijahideen, more frequently known as 'Al Shabaab.'

Abdullah was found guilty on six counts, namely conspiring to provide and provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization and conspiring to murder US nationals, commit aircraft piracy, destroy aircraft, and commit transnational acts of terrorism. 

The recently-convicted Abdullah, according to the indictment, had spent months in Somalia training with AK-47 Assault rifles and explosives. The organization had planned on hijacking a commercial flight and crashing it into a building in the US. 

In preparation for the attack, Abdullah obtained a pilot license from a flight school in the Philippines and researched potential targets, searching the tallest buildings in American cities and researching how to open a cockpit door from outside. He had also conducted significant research and exchanged encrypted messages on the September 11 attacks. 

Abdullah will appear before the courts for sentencing on March 10, 2025. 

“The jury found that Cholo Abdi Abdullah, an operative of the terrorist organization al Shabaab, conspired to murder Americans in a terrorist attack reminiscent of the September 11 attack on our country,” said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland. “Today’s conviction ensures that Abdullah will spend decades in prison for his crimes. The Justice Department will never stop working to identify, investigate, and prosecute those who would use heinous acts of violence to harm the American people. It does not matter where terrorists hide. They will not evade the long arm of the law.”

“Today, the jury returned a unanimous verdict holding Cholo Abdi Abdullah responsible for trying to replicate one of history’s most heinous acts of terrorism,” said US Attorney Damian Williams for the Southern District of New York. “Abdullah trained with al Shabaab for months in Somalia to become a deadly terrorist and then spent months at flight school preparing to hijack a commercial aircraft to crash it into a building in the United States. Abdullah relentlessly pursued his goals and was on the cusp of getting a commercial pilot license while conducting extensive attack planning, such as how to breach an airplane cockpit door," Garland added.

"I commend the tireless work of our federal law enforcement partners and the career national security prosecutors of this office. This effort has been carried forward by generations of agents and prosecutors who never relented in their effort to bring Abdullah to justice and keep this nation safe. Thanks to their work and today’s verdict, Abdullah will now serve a lengthy sentence in federal prison.”

Why has Al Shabaab set its sights on the United States?

In 2019, following the decision of returning President Donald Trump to move the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, Al-Qaeda renewed attacks against the US, its citizens, and its global interest under the “Operation Jerusalem Will Never be Judaized.” Al Shabaab has sworn allegiance to Al-Qaeda, absorbing the terror group's mission goals. 

Osama Bin Laden, Al-Qaeda's founder, and mastermind behind the original attacks, had also set the terror group's site in the US for reasons relating to Israel, according to a letter Bin Laden published a year after the attacks in the Guardian. Nearly 3000 people were killed in the attacks, and thousands were wounded. 

Al-Qaeda has become more active in recent years, establishing new training bases and Islamic schools in the Taliban-ruled Afghanistan.