Amid the warnings of the growing threat to the U.S. posed by the Islamic State, the militant group formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the FBI arrested 44-year-old Donald Ray Morgan at John F. Kennedy Airport on August 2 under suspicions he was preparing to take part in jihad. The North Carolina native was arrested after returning home from eight months in Lebanon, where his wife lives. Morgan, an ex-convict, had been allegedly brokering deals for military-grade weaponry in his home state and was indicted for being a felon in possession of a firearm. Morgan caught the attention of the FBI when they discovered his Twitter rants from Lebanon under the alias “Abu Omar al Amreeki.” Aside from pledging his allegiance to Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi on the social media page, his tweets suggested that he may have been preparing for jihad in Syria, Iraq or possibly the U.S., as he referred to himself as a jihadist fighter. During a bail hearing last week, U.S. Attorney Nadia Moore argued that the alleged gun trafficker was too dangerous to return to North Carolina, and that it is possible that he traffics guns to people in the Islamic State. Morgan is currently being held without bail after a Brooklyn federal judge stated that the tweets clearly implied that he had been seeking to join the fighting in Syria or Iraq as a next step in waging jihad.
MSA's Research and Intelligence Analysis (RIA) Group has constructed the following analysis:
Officials have been increasingly concerned of the threat posed by Westerners who may return home from fighting overseas in Syria or Iraq, radicalized and with the militant training to conduct an attack. However, this particular case highlights a different aspect to the threat spectrum. Morgan had a criminal history with gun trafficking in the U.S. and may have been using these skills to provide material support to Islamic State militants. This emphasizes how individuals may be inspired or motivated by conflicts overseas to take part in some way, either from at home or abroad.
Apart from pledging allegiance to the leader of the Islamic State, Morgan also expressed a desire to travel to Syria or Iraq to join in the fighting, openly posting on his Twitter account from Lebanon: “To the brothers inside Syria and Iraq be humble and grateful many of us are trying to come as some are arrested and others delayed.” His criminal activity in North Carolina led to an investigation; however, his time spent in Syria’s neighboring Lebanon and Twitter history was most concerning and used as evidence during the hearing. Morgan’s use of social media underscores the importance of monitoring threatening behavior that may evolve online as either a preventative or investigative tool.
