A Kenyan national was handed two life sentences for plotting a “9/11-style terrorist attack” on behalf of an al-Qaeda affiliate, the Department of Justice announced on Monday.
CASE UPDATE from @NewYorkFBI: Cholo Abdi Abdullah Sentenced to Life in Prison for Conspiring to Commit 9/11-Style Terrorist Attack on Behalf Of al-Shabaab
— FBI (@FBI) December 23, 2025
This week, Cholo Abdi Abdullah was sentenced to life in prison for conspiring to provide, and providing, material support to… pic.twitter.com/6DsARiL22q
Cholo Abdi Abdullah, a 34-year-old member of al-Shabaab, spent nearly two years in a Filipino flight school in an attempt to receive the necessary ratings required to operate commercial aircraft, with his training entirely funded by the Islamic terror organization.
While in flight school, he began to craft his plan to hijack an airliner. The aircraft would then be flown into the Bank of America Plaza, Atlanta’s tallest skyscraper. The DOJ announced that he conducted extensive research on U.S. immigration visas to enter the country, how to smuggle a knife onto an airplane, and the probability of air marshals being present on his chosen flight. Abdullah anticipated killing or injuring other passengers while taking over the plane.
Filipino authorities arrested Abdullah in July 2019 before he managed to complete his training, and he was sent to the United States to face trial the following year.
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He was convicted on Nov. 4 of last year on the following charges: conspiring to provide, and providing, material support to a foreign terrorist organization, and conspiring to murder U.S. nationals, commit aircraft piracy, destroy aircraft, and commit transnational acts of terrorism.
Abdullah was recruited by al-Shabaab in 2015. The al-Qaeda affiliate operates out of Somalia and other East African states. Following his sentencing, FBI officials claimed on X that Abdullah “was recruited by senior al-Shabaab operatives for a “greater plan,” one that was “bigger than the fighting and the explosives.”
Following President Trump’s decision to relocate the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, al-Shabaab announced that it would join al-Qaeda’s jihadist campaign called “Operation ‘Al-Qudsu Lan Tuhawwad” or “Jerusalem will never be Judaized.” The terror group has since claimed responsibility for numerous terror attacks as a part of that campaign, according to the DOJ.
“Al-Qaeda affiliated terrorist and trained pilot Cholo Abdullah was justly punished today for his plotting to commit a 9/11-style terrorist attack,” said FBI Assistant Director in Charge Christopher G. Raia in the DOJ press release. “This case serves as a reminder that individuals still wish to inflict violence upon our country in the name of terrorism. The FBI New York Joint Terrorism Task Force remains steadfast in its relentless determination to protect the American people from terrorists and their heinous desires.”
“I commend the years of outstanding investigative work of the FBI and the career prosecutors of this Office who disrupted Abdullah’s murderous plot and brought him to face justice in a U.S. court,” said U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton. “He will now spend life behind bars, where he will not be able to harm innocent Americans.”
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