Here we go again, a foreign doctor taking advantage of America.

This time a Pakistani here on an H-1B Visa!

BTW, there is news on other topics besides the virus crisis—news that is lost as we fixate on COVID-19!

From the Minneapolis Star Tribune (h/t: Linda):

Ex-Mayo Clinic employee charged with attempting to provide ISIS support

 

A former medical coordinator for Mayo Clinic was arrested at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport on Thursday while trying to get to Syria to fight “on the front line” of ISIS.

The FBI arrested 28-year-old Muhammad Masood after he checked in for his flight to Los Angeles. The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Minnesota has charged Masood with attempting to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization, including wanting to serve as a fighter and combat medic and talking of his desire to enact a lone wolf-style attack. Masood made his first appearance in court Thursday.

Masood is a licensed medical doctor in Pakistan working in the United States on an H-1B Visa for the past two years in the Mayo Clinic Department of Cardiovascular Diseases. In a statement Thursday, Mayo Clinic communications manager Ginger Plumbo said that Masood was not a Mayo Clinic employee at the time of his arrest. It is unclear when his employment ended.

From January to March, Masood made several statements pledging his allegiance to ISIS and its leader, according to charges.

“i want to fight on the front line as well as help the wounded brothers,” he said over an encrypted social media app to confidential informant sources, according to charges. “as i doctor i want to help mujahedeen [sic] on the ground,” he wrote. According to charges, “mujahedeen” refers to those engaged in jihad.

On Feb. 19, Masood traveled to Bloomington to meet with a confidential informant he believed would help him join ISIS. They met in the parking lot of a shopping mall and drove to a nearby hotel. They patched in another informant via video conference, who Masood believed to be an overseas commander vetting him.

Left out of the Star Tribune story is this line from an AP story:

He explained that he wanted to make the trip because he “hates smiling at the passing kuffar just to not make them suspicios.”  The affidavit said kuffar is an Arabic term meaning nonbeliever or non-Muslim. 

Commit that line to memory!