Man accused of recruiting for Islamic State faces trial
NEW YORK — U.S. prosecutors are counting on the social media postings of an Arizona man to help persuade a jury that he was a recruiter for Islamic State militants.
Ahmed Mohammed el-Gammal, who lived in Avondale, a Phoenix suburb, faces trial Monday at a federal court in New York on charges that he helped a 24-year-old New Yorker link up with Islamic State fighters in 2015 after travelling to Syria via Turkey.
“I am willing to live in a tent under an Islamic state instead of all luxuries under an infidel state,” Ahmed Mohammed el-Gammal, 44, wrote in one Facebook chat in July, 2014.
The New York man he allegedly helped become a fighter, Samy el-Goarany, was killed in Syria in November 2015, according to prosecutors.