Kaan Sercan Damlarkaya, 23, was sentenced to 165 months in prison for trying to join the Islamic State and send the group material support, the Justice Department said in a statement June 29, 2023. (File)
A Texas man who sought to fight for the Islamic State group or attack non-Muslims in America if he couldn’t go abroad was sentenced this week to nearly 14 years in prison, the Justice Department said.
Kaan Sercan Damlarkaya, 23, received the prison term Thursday in the wake of a 2019 guilty plea on charges of attempting to provide material support to the terrorist group.
He began trying to associate with ISIS as a teenager in 2014 and was arrested in December 2017, a Justice Department statement said Thursday.
In the five months before his arrest, he carried on conversations online with undercover FBI agents posing as ISIS supporters.
In one exchange, he said he slept with a machete under his pillow so it would be ready to use if law enforcement personnel raided his house. Investigators found the machete by his bed, according to court documents.
Damlarkaya expressed a desire to travel to Syria or Afghanistan and join ISIS, and if that plan failed, the Houston resident said he would carry out attacks at home in the name of the organization, court documents stated.
He said “he hated living in this world” and dreamed of becoming a martyr, court filings said. Damlarkaya intended to teach ISIS supporters how to build homemade weapons or carry out attacks on a limited budget, prosecutors alleged.
“A lot of us are poor … or we don't have experience. So not all of us can get a gun or make explosives, but we can afford to buy a $15 knife,” he said, according to a court document.
In addition, he twice gave guidance on constructing bombs using the self-made explosive triacetone triperoxide and emphasized safety, telling the agents to be “useful before you can strike,” prosecutors said.
Authorities also found a farewell email Damlarkaya sent to himself, which an investigator said likely was written for a friend’s sister with whom Damlarkaya was in love and wanted to marry.
Damlarkaya told the agents he believed the girl’s parents had reported him to the FBI and had prevented her from seeing him because “of course they won’t let their daughter marry a terrorist,” according to court documents.
