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.
3 thoughts on “Minnesota: Former Mayo Clinic Doc Charged, Wanted to Help ISIS”
Our very own government keeps adding insult to injury concerning protection against a virus. And we the people keep voting for these people! We are killing ourselves from within, the outside doesn’t need any help doing this we are doing to great of a job ourselves.
The following bill is by a Republican. You can not stop other forms of disease attacking our people when our own government keeps bringing them here.
So did we put him through medical school here too then?
I remember very well all the freaky looking muslim women dressed in black from head to toe with only eye slits to see out of when my little girl was going to this location for cancer treatment. Scared her (and me) to get on the same elevator with them or sit in the same waiting area. And they are extremely rude and treated everyone like dirt. Also plaques on the walls thanking muslims by name for donating large amounts of money and or building wings of the hospital (St Mary’s and the clinic). Many muslim students and doctors worked there at the time. Changed my opinion of Mayo for sure and my family has been going there since my great grand parents. No more!
Our very own government keeps adding insult to injury concerning protection against a virus. And we the people keep voting for these people! We are killing ourselves from within, the outside doesn’t need any help doing this we are doing to great of a job ourselves.
The following bill is by a Republican. You can not stop other forms of disease attacking our people when our own government keeps bringing them here.
https://www.numbersusa.com/news/congress-considers-increasing-visas-foreign-investors
So did we put him through medical school here too then?
I remember very well all the freaky looking muslim women dressed in black from head to toe with only eye slits to see out of when my little girl was going to this location for cancer treatment. Scared her (and me) to get on the same elevator with them or sit in the same waiting area. And they are extremely rude and treated everyone like dirt. Also plaques on the walls thanking muslims by name for donating large amounts of money and or building wings of the hospital (St Mary’s and the clinic). Many muslim students and doctors worked there at the time. Changed my opinion of Mayo for sure and my family has been going there since my great grand parents. No more!
Thanks Rose for the personal insight!