A US man national was sentenced to be jailed for 13 years Monday for planning to travel to Pakistan to give weapons training to al Qaeda fighters, after spending time fighting in Syria, prosecutors said.
Sinh Vinh Ngo Nguyen, 25, pleaded guilty late last year to attempting to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization.
US District Judge John Walter called the crime “a very serious offense that requires a correspondingly long sentence.”
Nguyen, based outside Los Angeles and also known as Hasan Abu Omar Ghannoum, admitted that in late 2012 he traveled to Syria, where he joined forces fighting President Bashar al Assad.
During a four-month stay there, he posted online that he was fighting against the Assad regime, and that he had had a “confirmed kill.”
Nguyen discussed his intentions of traveling to Pakistan with a false US passport, to train about 30 al Qaeda fighters for 5-6 weeks “for a guerrilla warfare ambush attack on coalition forces” sometime in late 2013, with an under cover law enforcement agent.
He bought a plane ticket to Peshawar on October 1 and was arrested on October 11 as he prepared to leave. In his possession, he had a false passport and over 180 training videos on shooting firearms.
