A 26-year-old Pakistani national
was deported Monday on charges of being an aspiring combatant
for the so-called Islamic State (ISIS) terror group.
Warehouse worker Farook Aftab allegedly planned to join
ISIS in the Middle East and also to carry out a suicide attack
on a wine shop in the name of Islam, which forbids the
consumption of alcohol.
Anti-terror police found evidence he consulted Islamist
terrorist propaganda and videos online, that he swore fealty to
the so-called caliphate via an online video following an ISIS
rite for aspiring jihadists living in Western countries, that he
tried to enlist his Pakistani housewife in ISIS, and that he
believed the Paris attacks to be a legitimate reaction against
French air raids on ISIS in Syria and Iraq as part of an
international coalition.
Aftab was under surveillance for months after it emerged he
had communicated online with an Albanian national whose name
surfaced in connection with Maria Giulia Sergio, Italy's first
female foreign fighter who is now in Syria.
The Albanian was deported last February.
Aftab had arrived in Italy in 2003 and applied for
citizenship, but was turned down earlier this year.
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