US man arrested at JFK airport for trying to join Pak terror group

A Manhattan man was arrested Thursday as tried to get on a plane to fly overseas, allegedly to Pakistan to join and train with a terror group, prosecutors said.

The FBI and NYPD arrested Wilfredo Encarnacion, 29, at JFK Airport. Prosecutors said he spoke to an FBI undercover about his alleged plans to join the terror group Lashkar e-Tayyiba, which is believed responsible for several major terror plots including the 2008 Mumbai attacks.

"Encarnacion allegedly attempted to travel to Pakistan to join a foreign terrorist organization and conspired with another individual to provide that organization with material support," said Assistant Attorney General John Demers.

Encarnacion aka "Jihadistsoldgier", "Jihadinhear", "Jihadinheart" and "Lionofthegood," plotted to travel to Pakistan to join and train with LeT, said US Attorney Geoffrey Berman.

"Not only did Encarnacion express a desire to execute and behead people, he scheduled travel and almost boarded a plane so he could go learn how to become a terrorist," said FBI New York Director William Sweeney.

Investigators said the suspect did not yet have weapons or training but repeatedly spoke about how "I want to execute. I want to behead. Shoot."

Encarnacion allegedly wrote a message on a jihadist forum on Nov. 1, 2018: "I want to fight till death alongside the Islamic State...I’m a lone wolf looking for a family I can strike the crusaders ... I want to be part of a family willing to kill not afraid of death."

On Nov. 6, he allegedly wrote: "I want to join a group like isis, al wards or Taliban. I just don’t have connections. I want to learn. Fight. Kill. Die. And go to paradise."

In another instance of the growing influence of the LeT in the US and radicalization of young people in the US, a teenager in Texas was charged by the FBI with using social media to recruit people on behalf of the terror group and send them to Pakistan for terrorist training.

The arrests have thrown the spotlight on issues of homegrown terrorism and radicalization of young people in the US, a situation that authorities have dreaded post-Mumbai-terrorist attack.