A 41-year-old Chicago man faces up to 130 years in prison after he was convicted of supporting the terror group Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham by using social media to try to recruit members and to encourage attacks, the U.S. Justice Department said on June 27.
Ashraf Al Safoo, who was arrested in 2018, was a leader of the Khattab Media Foundation, a “sophisticated online organization that swore allegiance to ISIS,” the department said.
The foundation created and spread threats and ISIS propaganda via social media and other platforms, and it posted essays, infographics and other forms of media at the terror group’s direction, per the department.
Much of it “promoted violent jihad,” the department said, including images of violence, celebrations of terror attacks and U.S. mass shootings and encouraging “lone wolf” attacks in the United States and other Western countries.
Sentencing is scheduled for Oct. 9.