Teen Sentenced For Helping Islamic State

A Manassas teenager has been sentenced to more than 11 years in prison for helping another teen travel to Syria to join the Islamic State.

A 17-year-old student at Osbourn Park High School, Ali Shukri Amin pled guilty in June to conspiring to provide material support to terrorists.

In federal court Friday, U.S. District Judge Claude M. Hilton sentenced Amin to 136 months in prison. He could have received up to 15 years.

With his plea agreement, Amin confessed to using Twitter to provide instructions on how to use BItcoin to mask money sent to ISIL. He also admitted to facilitating travel for an 18-year-old from Prince William County who traveled to Syria to join ISIL in January.

Prince William County Police Chief Stephen Hudson said Friday that observations by school staff, “proved to be instrumental in the overall investigation in stopping a dangerous network such as ISIL from further infiltrating our community.”

Amin was just one example of the Islamic State using social media to recruit and radicalize young people in the U.S., according to Assistant Attorney General John Carlin. “More and more, their propaganda is seeping into our communities and reaching those who are most vulnerable.”

The teen who traveled to Syria, Reza Niknejad, has been charged with conspiring to provide material support to terrorists, conspiring to provide material support to ISIL and conspiring to kill and injure people abroad.