Judge announces sentence for suspected terrorist trained in Somalia

A judge sentenced a Kenyan national to two consecutive life sentences on Monday for plotting a plane attack reminiscent of 9/11, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced.

Cholo Abdi Abdullah received military-style training from the Islamic terrorist group Al-Shabaab in Somalia, which borders Kenya, to prepare for a “mass-casualty terrorist attack” before the first Trump administration caught him, the DOJ said. Abdullah represented himself in court, and jurors convicted him in November 2024 on all counts, ABC News reported.

Abdullah joined Al-Shabaab, an Al Qaeda offshoot, in 2015 and learned about the use of weapons and explosives, prosecutors found. He later joined a flight school in the Philippines, receiving financing from the terrorist group. Abdullah also spent years researching how to hijack a plane and what building in the U.S. would make a suitable target, floating the 55-story Bank of America Plaza in Atlanta, Georgia.

After being arrested in the Philippines in July 2019, he told the FBI of his intent to one day hijack a plane, the DOJ said. Another part of his research included “certain transit visas that would allow him to enter the U.S,” according to the department.

Abdullah was convicted of conspiring to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization, providing that support, conspiring to murder U.S. nationals abroad, conspiring to commit aircraft piracy, conspiring to destroy aircraft and conspiring to commit acts of terrorism transcending national boundaries, according to the DOJ.

“I commend the years of outstanding investigative work of the FBI and the career prosecutors of this Office who disrupted Abdullah’s murderous plot and brought him to face justice in a U.S. court,” U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton said. “He will now spend [decades] behind bars, where he will not be able to harm innocent Americans.”

Since returning to office, President Donald Trump has restricted immigration from several African countries, including Somalia, over concerns about criminal activity. Kenya has not been included.

Trump’s clampdown on Somali immigration came amid a scandal over billions of dollars in welfare fraud in Minnesota that prosecutors linked to the state’s Somali population. Law enforcement sources told City Journal that some of the stolen money went to Al-Shabaab, effectively making Minnesota “the largest funder of” Abdullah’s terrorist group.

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