A New Jersey man who was inspired by the October 7 massacre to join a terrorist organization pled guilty to attempting to provide material support to Somali jihadist group Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahideen, the New York Southern District US Attorney’s Office announced.
Karrem Nasr, 24, moved from Lawrenceville, New Jersey, to Egypt in July 2023, and after the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack he tried to travel to Somalia via Kenya so that he could join and train under al-Shabaab. In December 2023, Nasr was taken into custody by Kenyan authorities and soon returned to the US.
Also known by the nom de guerre Ghareeb Al-Muhajir, Nasr told an FBI confidential source posing as a facilitator for the terrorist organization that “evil America” was his primary enemy and the “head of the snake.”Nasr told the source he would “like to become a martyr in the sake of Allah.
“I think in coming years, inshallah (God willing) we are going to see here big events in Egypt and the other Arab countries,” Nasr said according to the US Attorney’s Office’s Monday statement. “Inshallah if this happens; I will come back to Egypt, inshallah to help the Muslims in Egypt in their struggle to establish here in Egypt.”
Jihad-inspired social media posts
A defunct social media account linked by the US Attorney’s Office to Nasr included in its handle the inverted red triangle used in Hamas propaganda to denote the targeting of an enemy.
“Jihad on your home turf,” Nasr allegedly said on X/Twitter with airplane, bomb, and fire emojis. “Coming soon to a US location near you.”
US Attorney Danielle Sassoon said Nasr had devoted himself to attacking America and its allies inspired by “the evil terrorist attack perpetrated by Hamas on October 7, 2023.
“Now, instead of perpetrating a deadly attack in the name of a foreign terrorist group, Nasr resides in federal prison,” said Sassoon, who thanked law enforcement partners that included the FBI’s New York Joint Terrorism Task Force, the Kenyan Directorate of Criminal Investigation, and the Joint Terrorism Task Force-Kenya.
The Lawrenceville man faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison for attempting to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization. He is set to be sentenced on June 30.