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Feds charge Minnesota man who they say trained with ISIS

NEW YORK (AP) — A naturalized U.S. citizen who rapped about flying to “shoot New York up” after training with ISIS in his native Somalia has been charged with supporting a terrorist organization, federal prosecutors said Friday.

Harafa Hussein Abdi, 41, of Minneapolis was arrested recently in East Africa and taken to the United States this week, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New York. He was ordered held following an initial appearance in federal court in Manhattan on Friday.

Abdi moved from Minnesota to Somalia in 2015 and joined a group of ISIS fighters at a training camp, prosecutors said in a newly unsealed criminal complaint. Over the next two years, in addition to receiving weapons training, Abdi worked in the group’s media wing, making and appearing in a recruiting video distributed by a pro-ISIS outlet, the filing said.

The complaint quotes lyrics from a 2017 audio clip in which Abdi allegedly raps about inflicting violence in New York City while automatic gunfire and an explosion are heard in the background.

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