Aspiring jihadist arrested at RDU after "ISIS facilitator" turns out to be fed
According to court documents, Alexander Justin White was on his way to Morocco to take up position in Islamic State-West Africa fighter unit offered by FBI covert employee
Alexander "Alec" Justin White aka "Sulaiman Al-Amriki," a 29-year-old resident of Durham, was arrested at the RDU airport last month on his way to a fictional ISIS assignment in Africa which had been fabricated by the FBI, according to newly unsealed documents first reported on by Court Watch.
The American
White, whose nom de guerre which translates to "Sulaiman the American," appears to have been born in North Carolina, according to an inactive Orange County voter registration which lists him as a non-Hispanic white and a Democrat.
As one of White's neighbors who was "shocked" to hear of the allegations anonymously told ABC11: "he seemed like he was American...he didn't seem to have any kind of foreign accent or anything."
According to the criminal complaint, White converted to Islam in 2015 and unsuccessfully sought to join the Islamic State when he travelled to Egypt three years later in 2018. As White wrote in a private Facebook message, he would "sometimes [] get frustrated with [himself]" because he "should have been in Sham" (the Arabic term for the Greater Syria region) after taking his "Shahadah," the adoption of the Muslim creed.
White was cautious in his quest to join the terrorist organization, telling the same user that he "didn't know really where to go because [he] remembered that a lot of brothers and sisters got in trouble because they were talking to people that were pretending to be [ISIS]."
Despite being questioned by Homeland Security on his return from Egypt, as White wrote in another message, he appears to have escaped the attention of the authorities until last year, when he changed the name on his Facebook account from "Alec White" to "Sulaiman Al-Amriki" and was "frequently" making what the DOJ referred to as "posts supporting ISIS and jihad."
The Facebook posts made between May and October 2024 referenced in the charging documents include an "ISIS propaganda video" of a jihadist chant during the Battle of Baghouz and posts referencing Islamic teachings regarding jihad and martyrdom.



White also discussed sending financial aid with a handful of individuals, including at least five who were associated with camps in Syria which are "known to be used by ISIS to obtain funds under the guise of humanitarian aid and are locations at which ISIS recruits for members," according to the DOJ.
Undercover Employee
On September 10, 2024, White was contacted online by an individual who he believed could make his foreign jihad into a reality; however, as is often the case in such situations, the "ISIS facilitator" was in fact an Online Covert Employee (OCE) of the FBI.
According to the DOJ, White told the OCE that he was still interested in joining the Islamic State overseas, and that he had relevant skills in using and maintaining firearms.
The criminal complaint includes two images captured at the Triangle Shooting Academy, where White appears to have trained. The first is in a message sent by White on September 28; in response to a question by the OCE about which firearm he intended to shoot with that day, White sent a publicly available image of one of the facility's gun counters with a red circle around what appears to be a M249 light machine gun, one of the automatic rifles available for rental usage at the range:


The second image, which the DOJ alleges captures White firing a handgun at an indoor range, was obtained by the FBI in July 2024 "during the course of the investigation":
In addition to the messages exchanged between White and the OCE, the FBI set up a 27-minute video call with a Confidential Human Source (CHS) posing as the English-speaking representative of ISIS emir Abu Hafs al-Hashimi al-Qurashi, in which White ironically reiterated his past concerns in traveling to Syria that he would end up "talking to the wrong people" who were only "pretending" to be with ISIS.
According to the DOJ, White also told the OCE in messages that he was fine with killing American troops or American citizens, and that it was "everything that [he] wished for and dreamed about" when the OCE offered him a place in an English speaking "fighter unit" with the Islamic State in West Africa.


In October, White sent the OCE a screenshot of the round-trip tickets he had purchased for travel from RDU to Morocco. White and the OCE discussed the need to avoid the suspicion attached to a one-way ticket, and that he "would rather die then \[sic] to go back here."
The complaint also alleges that White purchased equipment he could bring with him to use in service to Allah with ISIS, including military-style boots and a trauma kit.


On December 4, after arriving at the airport, clearing security, and attempting to board the flight to Paris on his way to Morocco, White was arrested and charged with Providing, Attempting, and Conspiring to Provide Material Support to a Designated Foreign Terrorist Organization under 18 U.S. Code § 2339B, which carries a maximum penalty of 20 years imprisonment.
According to the motion filed this week to unseal the court documents, White is currently in the custody of the U.S. Marshals and has entered into a plea agreement.
The federal government has also filed for forfeiture of $6,970 in cash which was found on White's person, as well as a M1911 handgun found in his residence on University Drive in Durham.
Surveillance
Given that there is no mention of any "search warrants" in the criminal complaint or the case file, it is not clear how much of the information referenced in the document was obtained via the normal judicial processes with their accompanying checks and balances, as compared to the wide-sweeping powers of the post-911 anti-terrorism surveillance state or the cooperation of Big Tech platforms.
However, we do have some clues as to the depth of the information gathering process; at a press conference this week, FBI representative Bob DeWitt told the gathered media that the task force investigating the case had spent "weeks of lawfully and legally exploiting [White's] devices, his social media accounts, conducting countless interviews, and other investigative measures to get us to where we are here today, to be sure there were no other actionable threats linked to White or those he was associated with."
In addition, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of NC Michael Easely Jr. referenced "functionally 24-hour surveillance" of White in concert with the FBI's law enforcement partners on the Raleigh-Durham Joint Terrorism Task Force, which include the police departments of Raleigh, Durham, and Cary, as well as the NC State Bureau of Investigation, the NC State Highway Patrol, and Wake County Sheriff's Office.
An example of this surveillance is a solitary image in the criminal complaint from a random day in October which shows White breaking in the boots he had bought for the trip:
Although the document contains a number of private messages exchanged between White and various third parties on Facebook, it does not seem to contain any messages sent by White on "encrypted messaging applications" beyond those exchanged with the FBI employee.
Finally, a fourth means of evidence gathering is reflected in the indoor range photo included in the document, which the language in the complaint appears to indicate was obtained in July 2024, before first contact was made with the covert employee:
no word on what does otherwise do a healthy, white 29 y.o. or his family?
Maybe the best thing would have been to let him go. Seems like a very involved and expensive investigation for one small fish. Let them go but secure and revoke their American passports. Arrest would only be necessary if he survived and tried to renter the US. The harsh conditions and permanent exile are the best punishment.