North Carolina man arrested for ISIS Support

In partnership with

Editor’s note: The story has been updated to reflect a decline to comment from White’s lawyer. 1/15/2025

A 29-year-old North Carolina man was arrested at Raleigh-Durham airport while trying to board an international flight on his journey to join ISIS, according to newly unsealed court records. On December 4th, the FBI stopped Alexander White at the airport gate after secretly monitoring the man for months. 

Court records lay out a relatively fast investigation by the FBI once alerted to his alleged support for ISIS. The three-and-a-half-month investigation began after White had posted ISIS propaganda content to social media, charging documents state.

The court document outlines a series of conversations between White and an undercover FBI employee where White discusses weapons training and traveling overseas to join the foreign terrorist group. 

White reportedly went by the name “Sulaiman Al-Amriki” online and posted between May and October 2024 on Facebook pro-ISIS videos from several years ago of the terrorist group in battle against Iraq and U.S.-backed coalition forces. He allegedly sent messages last summer in channels in which the terror group’s supporters would trade information on how to build homemade explosives and send money to ISIS members. 

According to the complaint, White purportedly promised to send money to five different Facebook members who had claimed that they were being held at prison camps in Syria for people associated with ISIS. Online messages included in the filing that were dated in late September of last year show that White talked about wanting to fight and serve in ISIS’ armed insurgent units himself.

Beginning in September 2024, White came into contact with an undercover FBI agent online who was posing as an ISIS member and promised to help White join the group. White purportedly told the undercover FBI agent online soon after that he would fight against U.S. military personnel and civilians, even if it meant killing his family. The FBI says White also recorded a video pledging support for ISIS that was intended to be sent to ISIS leadership.

White told the undercover agent that he owned multiple semi-automatic guns, according to the complaint, which he had used to train with at a shooting range in Durham. White purportedly purchased desert-style military boots and a personal combat medic kit from Amazon as part of his preparation to join the terror group, according to the FBI. White reportedly lived at a house in Durham, NC, less than a ten-minute drive from Duke University’s campus.

White also allegedly sought out other ISIS members to help him facilitate travel from the U.S. in order to join the terror group. Court documents say he singled out Africa as a potential destination because of ISIS’ hold on power in several regions.

More than 250 individuals have been charged with ISIS-related activities in the United States, according to a recent review by NCITE at the University of Nebraska Omaha. Two weeks ago, a Texas man murdered 14 people on New Year’s Day in New Orleans. The FBI believes that the suspect in that attack was inspired by ISIS.

News of White’s arrest has not previously been reported. His charging documents were unsealed today. According to an unsealing motion, he entered into a plea agreement with the Justice Department. 

The U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of North Carolina, which is prosecuting the case, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. White’s Federal Defender cited office policy of not commenting on pending cases. 

Need a personal assistant? We do too, that’s why we use AI.

Ready to embrace a new era of task delegation?

HubSpot’s highly anticipated AI Task Delegation Playbook is your key to supercharging your productivity and saving precious time.

Learn how to integrate AI into your own processes, allowing you to optimize your time and resources, while maximizing your output with ease.

Get the free guide here.