Authorities have charged a 42-year-old U.S. citizen with aiding ISIS, saying the Kazakhstan-born man — who left New York in 2013 to join fighters in Syria — was a sniper for the extremist group he allegedly bragged was “the worst terrorist organization in the world.”
Ruslan Maratovich Asainov, a naturalized U.S. citizen born in Kazakhstan, is being charged with providing and attempting to provide material support, including training, services and recruits, to ISIS, according to a Justice Department press release.
Asainov was detained by Syrian Democratic Forces and transferred to FBI custody. He arrived at John F. Kennedy International Airport Thursday and appeared in court Friday afternoon, where NBC News reported he was held without bail.
Asainov lived in Brooklyn from 1998 to 2013. In December 2013, he flew to Istanbul, Turkey, which authorities say is a common transit point into Syria.
Asainov became a sniper for ISIS and “periodically sent messages and photographs from the battlefield, including photographs of himself and other ISIS fighters in combat gear,” according to court documents.
By early 2015, court documents say, “the defendant was touting his allegiance to ISIS and threatening another individual that ISIS ‘will [expletive] kill you.’” He once referred to ISIS as “the worst terrorist organization in the world that has ever existed.”
Asainov rose in rank to become an “emir” responsible for training fighters in using weapons. He also attempted to recruit another person — a confidential informant for the New York City Police Department — to travel from the United States to Syria to fight on behalf of ISIS.
At one point, Asainov asked the informant to send about $2,800 so he could buy a scope for his rifle. The informant did not. Asainov later sent two photographs appearing to show himself holding a large-caliber assault rifle with a scope, court documents say.
“Some go to great lengths to join groups, such as ISIS, to fight on behalf of terrorist ideologies, and to recruit others to travel in support of their misguided principles,” William F. Sweeney Jr., assistant director-in-charge of the FBI’s New York Field Office, said in the press release. “As we allege today, Asainov left this country to do just that. He turned his back on the ideals we value, and he’ll now be made to face our justice system head-on.”
