(Tribune News Service) — A former New Jersey resident motivated by the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack in Israel was arrested earlier this month on charges he sought to join a Somalian-based terrorist organization to target “evil America,” federal authorities said Friday.

Karrem Nasr, 23, a U.S. citizen who previously lived in Lawrenceville, was arrested in Nairobi, Kenya, on Dec. 14 and returned to the United States on Thursday to face federal charges of attempted provision of material support and resources to a designated foreign terrorist organization, according to a release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office Southern District of New York.

Nasr moved from New Jersey to Egypt in July and is a supporter of al Shabaab, a designated foreign terrorist organization that has attacked Americans and American allies, authorities said.

Since November, he has repeatedly expressed his desire in communications his plans to join al Shabaab and wage jihad, authorities said. Nasr unknowingly sent some of those communications to an FBI confidential source who was posing as a facilitator for terrorist organizations, authorities said.

Nasr told both the source and said in online postings that he had been thinking of engaging in jihad for a long time and was particularly motivated by the Hamas violence in Israel, authorities said.

He told the source that the number one enemy was “evil America,” which he called the “head of the snake,” authorities said.

In recent public social media posts, he warned that “Jihad” was “coming soon to a US location near you,” posting airplane, bomb, and fire emojis, the office said.

He later told the source he planned to join al Shabaab to receive military training and engage in jihad, that he was prepared to kill and be killed, and that he specifically wanted to be a martyr for the jihadist cause, authorities said.

Nasr made flight and lodging reservations for travel to Kenya, where he planned to meet members of al Shabaab for additional travel to Somalia to join and train with the group, authorities said. He booked a flight for Dec. 14, 2023, from Egypt to Kenya and the day before his flight, he told the source that he planned to delete data from his cellphone and computer to ensure that if he were detained, police would not be able to recover evidence, authorities said.

After flying to Kenya, he was taken into custody by Kenyan authorities, authorities said.

Nasr was scheduled to have his first court appearance Friday afternoon in Manhattan federal court.

“Thanks to the extraordinary efforts of the career prosecutors in my office and our law enforcement partners who led the investigation, Nasr’s plan to train with a terrorist organization and wage violent jihad has been disrupted,” U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said in a statement. “Make no mistake; my office is committed to investigating, disrupting, and prosecuting anyone who is inspired by Hamas’s October 7 attack and seeks to harm Americans, whether here or abroad.”

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