A man from the Middle East who came to the United States as a refugee was indicted on Thursday (January 13) on a federal charge for making a false statement involving international terrorism.
The U.S. Department of Justice has said that the defendant, Aws Mohammed Younis al-Jayab, 23, is a Palestinian who was born in Iraq and came to the United States in 2012 as a refugee from Syria.
Al-Jayab was one of two Middle Eastern men whose arrests on terrorism-related charges U.S. authorities announced January 7. Another Palestinian man who was born in Iraq, Omar Faraj Saeed al-Hardan, was arrested in Houston.
The two arrests are the latest in a series of similar cases in a U.S. campaign against extremism. Neither man was charged with plotting an attack on the United States.
The Justice Department said that the year after al-Jayab came to the United States, he went overseas, and later told officials that he had gone to Turkey to visit family.
There have been more than 75 publicized arrests of U.S. residents who have allegedly become radicalized by Muslim militants since 2014. (Reuters)