An Air Force veteran is the latest U.S. citizen arrested for allegedly attempting to join the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), a disturbing revelation that puts a face to one of the more than 150 Americans accused of the attempt.
The Department of Justice announced Tuesday that Tairod Nathan Webster Pugh, 47, was charged Monday with attempting to travel from Egypt to Syria to provide material support to ISIS. He was arrested in Turkey, from where officials say he planned to go across the border into Syria.
The charges are especially alarming given his former U.S. military credentials.
{mosads}“Born and raised in the United States, Pugh allegedly turned his back on his country and attempted to travel to Syria in order to join a terrorist organization,” said U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Loretta Lynch, whom President Obama has nominated to be U.S. attorney general.
Pugh served in the Air Force from Oct. 1986 through Oct. 1990, according to Air Force officials, when he was approximately between the ages of 19 and 23.
During that time, he served as an aircraft mechanic, assigned to the 23rd Aircraft Maintenance Squadron at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Arizona in 1989, and to the 581st Aircraft Generation Squadron at Woodbridge Air Base in the United Kingdom in 1987.
He later worked as a contractor for the Army in Iraq in 2009 and 2010, according to reports.
It is unclear when Pugh was radicalized.
A Facebook page that appeared to belong to Pugh contained anti-Israel posts in 2014, including a graphic with the words “There are no land called Israel,” and featuring a black-masked man holding an injured child.
There are also photos of Pugh posing in front of military aircraft. In some, he is wearing Islamic dress. In another, he is wearing a backwards baseball cap and posing at a gym in front of exercise weights.
Federal authorities say Pugh had been living in the Middle East for about a year and a half when he traveled to Turkey. Upon landing in Istanbul, he was stopped by Turkish authorities and claimed to be a vacationing pilot with the U.S. Special Forces.
He was sent back to Egypt, where he was detained, questioned and ultimately returned to the U.S. Authorities said that Pugh’s electronic devices — including his laptop and thumb drives — showed evidence of tampering.
In addition to being charged with attempting to provide material support to a terrorist organization, Pugh has been indicted for obstruction and attempted obstruction of justice for allegedly destroying his electronics.
It was on Pugh’s laptop that authorities say they found around 180 ISIS propaganda videos, charts showing the Syrian border and a note that they believe Pugh wrote to his Egyptian wife.
“I will use the talents and skills given to me by Allah to establish and defend the Islamic States,” he allegedly wrote.
Authorities say Pugh has been on the radar of federal law enforcement for some time.
In 2001, someone he worked with at American Airlines told the FBI that Pugh sympathized with Osama Bin Laden and believed that the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings were justified.
FBI investigators talked to someone in 2002 who said Pugh had indicated interest in traveling to Chechnya to fight with Islamic extremists.
Pugh’s attempted journey also highlights the problem of the more than 5,000 Westerners who have traveled through Turkey into Iraq and Syria to join the fight.
In total, more than 20,000 foreign fighters from over 90 countries have flocked to Iraq and Syria.
“That number continues to grow despite months of airstrikes,” said House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) at a hearing on Feb. 11.
On Tuesday, McCaul announced a new hearing on the rise of violent Islamist extremism.
“The rise of violent Islamist extremism we are witnessing around the globe is not a passing phenomenon,” McCaul said in a statement. “Today’s armies of Islamist terrorists are radicalizing new generations and the networks they are forming threaten the security of the West — including the United States.”
Governments worldwide are concerned that those foreign fighters could return back home to launch attacks. Lawmakers in the U.S. are especially concerned about foreign fighters traveling from visa-waiver countries back into the U.S. to launch attacks.
Pugh, as an American citizen, could have been one of them. He is scheduled to be arraigned on the charges on Wednesday.
—Last updated at 5:38 p.m.