American who 'regretted' joining Islamic State gets 20 years in jail

A 27-year-old American who joined the Islamic State (IS) group in Syria and later claimed he escaped and fled into the hands of Kurdish troops after a "bad decision" was sentenced on Friday to 20 years in prison.

In a separate case, an Uzbek citizen was sentenced in New York on Friday to 15 years for planning to join the militant group.

Mohamad Jamal Khweis, who received a 20-year sentence on Friday, left his job driving a bus for disabled people in northern Virginia in December 2015 to travel to IS's stronghold of Raqqa in Syria.

He spent about two-and-a-half months as a member of IS, taking part in religious training and staying in various safe houses, allegedly preparing to be a suicide bomber.

He was detained by Kurdish Peshmerga fighters in March 2016 in Tal Afar, Iraq, and later claimed he had escaped the militants, telling a Kurdish television station in Erbil that he did not see them as "good Muslims".

US authorities rejected his claims, saying he clearly had sought to join the group, selling his car and leaving home without telling anyone.

"The evidence at trial demonstrated that Mohamad Khweis is an unpredictable and dangerous person who was radicalised towards violent jihad," said Dana Boente, the US attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia.

A federal jury convicted Khweis on 8 June on all three charges against him, including providing and conspiring to provide material support or resources to IS, and a related firearms count.

He faced a maximum life sentence.

Also on Friday, a Brooklyn man was sentenced to 15 years in prison after pleading guilty to conspiring to provide material support to IS.

Abdurasul Hasanovich Juraboev, 27, an Uzbekistan citizen who once chopped salad at a Brooklyn gyro shop, was one of six people charged in the same case with plotting to aid IS.

Prosecutors sought a 15-year prison term, the maximum possible. Lawyers for Juraboev sought no more than five years, calling him an "unsophisticated, gullible, and lonely young man" who reached "wrong conclusions" about Islam and IS.

Authorities said Juraboev had in August 2014 posted an online threat to kill then-US president Barack Obama on behalf of IS, and spoke of planting a bomb on Coney Island if the group ordered it.

Juraboev was arrested in February 2015 after buying a plane ticket to fly the next month to Istanbul, Turkey, intending to then travel to Syria to join IS, authorities said.

Two co-defendants, Akhror Saidakhmetov and Abror Habibov, pleaded guilty this year, and charges are still pending against co-defendants Dilkhayot Kasimov, Azizjon Rakhmatov and Akmal Zakirov, court records show. Saidakhmetov faces a 13 December sentencing.

Saidakhmetov was also arrested in February 2015, as he was boarding a plane to Istanbul, authorities said.

The arrests of Juraboev and Saidakhmetov followed roughly five months of interactions between the men and a paid informant posing as being ideologically sympathetic.

Other defendants were charged with conspiring to pay Juraboev's and Saidakhmetov's travel expenses.

Another Uzbekistan citizen, Dilshod Khusanov, was in August charged in a separate case with having discussed with Zakirov providing funds for Saidakhmetov's trip, and helping others join IS or al-Nusra Front, al-Qaeda’s branch in Syria.

More than 100 people have faced US charges in connection with IS since 2014.