Feds: N.J. Air Force Vet Tried To Join ISIS, Charged As Terrorist

By Karen Wall and Jason Koestenblatt (Patch Staff)

A U.S. Air Force veteran from Monmouth County has been arrested on terrorism charges because, federal prosecutors say, he planned to travel to Syria to join ISIS.

Tairod Nathan Webster Pugh, 47, of Neptune, was indicted by a federal grand jury in New York on charges of attempting to provide material support to the terrorist group and obstruction of justice. He is scheduled to appear in federal court Wednesday, according to media reports.

>> RELATED: N.J. Air Force Vet Enters Not Guilty Plea To Charge He Sought To Join ISIS

Prosecutors say Pugh had been fired from his most recent job as an airplane mechanic based in the Middle East.

According to Pugh’s LinkedIn profile, that job was with Gryphon Airlines, an American-owned airline based in Virginia that, according to its website, provides chartered air transport throughout the Middle East, Europe, North Africa and South Central Asia. He was fired sometime in late 2014, according to federal authorities.

The website of the Centre For Aviation says Gryphon was the first airline to offer scheduled flights to the military side of Baghdad Airport when these flights began in March 2007, with the following destinations: Dubai, Kuwait, Baghdad, Najaf, and Kandahar, Afghanistan.

Prosecutors say he also worked as an airline mechanic for U.S. Army contractor DynCorp in Iraq from October 2009 to March 2010.

Pugh, who served in the Air Force from 1986 to 1990 as an avionics specialist, learning installation and maintenance of aircraft engine, navigation and weapons systems, also has ties to the Mount Holly area. Barbara Pugh lives in Hainesport, according to public property records, and Pugh identified her as his mother on Facebook in comments the two made on a photo of Pugh with his wife, Mona, taken in April 2014 on the Nile River. Pugh also has two children, according to photos he posted on Facebook.

The Facebook account has since been removed.

The federal arrest affidavit unsealed this week says the charges come from Pugh’s detention in Turkey and Egypt in January. Pugh flew from Egypt to Turkey Jan. 10, and upon arrival Turkish authorities questioned why he was in the country. Pugh claimed he was a U.S. Special Forces pilot seeking to go on vacation. Dissatisfied with Pugh’s answer and his refusal to allow them to search his laptop, Turkish authorities sent him back to Egypt, where he was detained to be deported back to the United States.

It was during that detention and questioning by U.S. authorities that his laptop and several other electronic devices, including USB flash drives, were confiscated. A subsquent search of them turned up information and data, including maps showing entry points from Turkey to Syria, that authorities say confirms Pugh’s ultimate destination was Syria.

When told he was to be sent back the United States, Pugh declined to go, asking to be sent elsewhere in the Middle East instead, because “The U.S. doesn’t like black Muslims,” the affidavit says.

Pugh isn’t the first American to attempt joining the Islamic State, according to a report from cnn.com.

National Intelligence Director James Clapper said, as of March 5, some 180 Americans have tried going to Syria to join the fight, according to the report. Of those arrested and accused of doing so, none who have fought in or supported ISIS has been charged with plotting to carry out an attack on U.S. soil.

Pugh’s Facebook page is filled with numerous photos of war and destruction from the Middle Eastern perspective. And his reverence for Islam is apparent in posts such as this one, from August 2012, where he is replying to messages from friends: ”Thank you to all. Hello to Sonja. Hello Tell, Buster and I are two good looking fellas. Thank You Kitten. Come to Islam, come to the worship of The creator who has no partners nor children, He is the Supreme, Alone with no associates, All powerful, the creator of Heaven and Hell and the only Judge on Judgement day.”

His private comments are more direct. In a letter to his wife pulled from one of the USB drives -- which authorities charge Pugh deliberately damaged in an attempt to prevent access to them -- Pugh reportedly wrote:

“I am Mujahid. I am a sword against the oppressor and a shield for the oppressed. I will use the talents and skills given to me by Allah to establish and defend the Islamic States. There are 2 possible outcomes for me. Victory or Martyr.”

The affidavit says the USB drives also contained 180 jihadist propaganda videos and one showing the ISIS execution of multiple prisoners, lined up and shot one at a time in the head. Most of those were downloaded in the last four months of 2014, the affidavit says.

Pugh’s last public Facebook post was dated August 2014. The arrest affidavit says family members told federal investigators that Pugh had been living in Egypt, Dubai and Jordan at least 18 months, and during that time married his current wife, Mona, federal authorities say.

His support of terrorism was nearly two decades in the making, according to federal authorities.

The arrest affidavit says Pugh converted to Islam in 1998, while he was living in San Antonio, Texas, and “became increasingly radical in his beliefs.”

In 2001, according to the affidavit, Pugh reportedly told a co-worker at American Airlines, where he was employed as an airline mechanic, that he sympathized with Osama Bin Laden and supported the 1998 terror attacks on U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. He also expressed support for the 9/11 terror attacks.

(Photos from Tairod Pugh’s Facebook page and LinkedIn profile show the Monmouth County man at various times, including with his wife, Mona, during a trip on the Nile River in April 2014.)

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