zirovsky

Karrem Nasr, 23, is a citizen of the United States. He is a resident of Lawrenceville, Lawrence Township, Mercer County, New Jersey, USA.

“The masculine urge to move to Egypt to go monk mode on fighting and copywriting,” Nasr wrote on Facebook on May 18, 2023. On July 16, 2023, he moved from Lawrenceville to Egypt to study Arabic. 

On October 7, 2023, an armed conflict between Israel and Palestinian militant groups led by Hamas started in and around the Gaza Strip. This motivated Nasr to become a jihadi, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

In November 2023, Nasr started communicating with who he thought was a facilitator for terrorist organizations but was actually an FBI confidential source. In postings online and communications exchanged with the FBI confidential source, the Lawrenceville resident said he had been thinking about engaging in jihad for a long time.

Nasr also told the FBI confidential source that he planned to join Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahideen, a Sunni Islamist military and political organization based in Somalia. Also known as al-Shabaab, the organization was founded in 2006.

Al-Shabaab has attacked Americans and U.S. allies. On February 26, 2008, the U.S. Secretary of State designated it as a foreign terrorist organization.

While in Egypt, Nasr booked a flight for December 14, 2023 to Kenya with a plan to transit from Kenya to Somalia and receive military training from al-Shabaab. That day, he arrived in Nairobi, Kenya where he was arrested by Kenyan authorities.

On December 17, 2023, al-Shabaab united Jaysh Ayman leader Maalim Ayman was killed by a joint military operation between the Somali and U.S. forces. He is responsible for a terrorist attack on Kenyan and U.S. personnel at Manda Bay Airfield in Kenya on January 5, 2020.

On December 28, 2023, Nasr was transported from Nairobi to the U.S. On December 29, 2023, he appeared in federal court in Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA before U.S. Magistrate Judge Barbara Moses and was charged with attempting to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization.