Texas Security Guard – and US Army Informant – Arrested for Joining ISIS (VIDEO)

An Iraqi American was arrested Thursday for pledging allegiance to al-Baghdadi and ISIS.
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Bilal Abood, who has spoken to News 8 over the past few months about his interactions with the FBI, has said that he worked as an interpreter for the U.S. Army, but that could not be immediately confirmed.

NBC DFW reported:

A Mesquite, Texas, man who pledged allegiance to ISIS and lied to the FBI about it was arrested on Thursday, according to a criminal complaint.

Bilal Abood, 37, a licensed security guard, is charged with making a false statement to the FBI. He faces up to eight years in prison.

Abood was born in Iraq and migrated to the United States in 2009. He was a naturalized U.S. citizen, prosecutors said.

Abood tried to travel to Iraq from D/FW International Airport on March 29, 2013, but was not allowed to board the flight. He was interviewed by FBI agents, claimed he was going to visit family, and denied that he planned to fight for ISIS, the complaint said.

He later admitted he planned to go to Syria to fight with the Free Syrian Army against the government, the complaint said.

The following month, he left DFW for Mexico and traveled through various countries to get to Syria. When he returned in September 2013, he admitted to FBI agents that he had stayed in a Free Syrian Army camp and fought with the group, the complaint said.

In July 2014, the FBI obtained a search warrant to search his computer. The search found that Abood had pledged allegiance to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi on June 19, 2014 and had viewed videos of atrocities such as beheadings and had tweeted information on al-Baghdadi, prosecutors said.

In his interview with FBI agents, he denied he had pledged allegiance to ISIS, and that denial was the basis of his charge.

It was not clear why agents waited nearly a year to arrest him.

Abood does not face a terrorism charge and there is no allegation he was planning any attacks in the United States.

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Jim Hoft is the founder and editor of The Gateway Pundit, one of the top conservative news outlets in America. Jim was awarded the Reed Irvine Accuracy in Media Award in 2013 and is the proud recipient of the Breitbart Award for Excellence in Online Journalism from the Americans for Prosperity Foundation in May 2016. In 2023, The Gateway Pundit received the Most Trusted Print Media Award at the American Liberty Awards.

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