Illinois man busted trying to join ISIS

U.S. citizen Mohammed Hamzah Khan was apprehended at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago while he was allegedly trying to join the Islamic State in Syria or Iraq. FBI agents later found pro-ISIS documents at his home and a letter he penned for his parents blasting Western societies and explaining why he felt the need to join the terrorist group.

A wannabe teen terrorist tried to join Islamic State fighters in Syria but got busted before he could fly out of a Chicago airport, officials said Monday.

Mohammed Hamzah Khan, 19, of Bolingbrook, Ill., bragged of being a “lion of war,” but his trip to the jihadi battlefield ended at O’Hare International Airport without incident, officials said.

The FBI’s Chicago Joint Terrorism Task Force nabbed the goateed Khan, a U.S. citizen, on Saturday after he blew his nefarious plans by leaving a sloppy trail of evidence — including a three-page letter to his parents with the plea not to alert anyone.

“My dear parents, there are a number of reasons I will be going to the blessed land of Shaam (another name for Syria) and leaving my home,” reads the letter included in a criminal complaint.
“Western societies are getting more immoral day by day,” he wrote. “I do not want my children to be exposed to filth like this.”

In the letter, Khan stated his desire to go to Syria or Iraq to join ISIS, FBI officials said.

“I extend an invitation, to my family, to join me in the Islamic State,” he wrote. “We are the lions of war. My nation, the dawn has emerged.”
In capital letters, Khan begged his parents: “Please make sure not to tell the authorities.”

He signed the letter, “Your loving son.”

Austrian Airlines said Khan’s roundtrip ticket was purchased on Sept. 26. He was scheduled to fly to Istanbul via Austria and return to Chicago.

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