DOJ: U.S. Military Linguist Secretly Supported ISIS-K

A U.S. military contract linguist pled guilty today to lying on his national security clearance forms about his relationships with ISIS-K, a terrorist group based in Afghanistan. Authorities say he secretly sent money to ISIS-K, and while deployed in Afghanistan for the U.S. military, he attempted to get an arrested ISIS-K member freed.

A Kansas man, Mohammad Rafi, was charged in October 2022 with false statements to the FBI. According to charging documents, he made materially false assertions on his forms when he stated he had no contact with known or suspected terrorists during his 2018 naturalization process and again in his application for a classified security clearance.

According to a plea document filed this morning outlining the case, “Rafi’s publicly available Facebook account revealed a pattern of reposting videos featuring both arrested ISIS-K recruiters, and other publicly identified members or recruiters for ISIS-K. In April 2018 and in May 2018, via direct messages on Rafi’s Facebook account, he sought telephone numbers for ISIS-K recruiters. During that same time period, Rafi used direct messages on his Facebook account to direct money sent via Western Union from Lenexa, Kansas, to Afghanistan be delivered to one of the subsequently arrested ISIS-K recruiters.”

According to filings, Rafi was deployed to Afghanistan as a military contract linguist in October 2019. Shortly after that, authorities say U.S. soldiers found him on day in November trying to sneak back onto base. Rafi allegedly told an informant later that he had secretly left the military compound in an attempt to facilitate the release of an ISIS-K recruiter who had been arrested by the Afghan government, according to court records.

The U.S. Attorney’s office in Kansas, which is prosecuting the case, declined to comment. A lawyer for Rafi said that his client “disputes several assertions made in the government’s document filed this morning.” He continued, “The Court was made aware of the disagreement today during his plea hearing”

In an interview with the FBI, filings say Rafi told investigators that he made a series of Facebook posts supporting ISIS-K “to become famous by posting content involving ISIS-K, as he believed following ‘bad’ people would bring fame.”

According to court records, he also told the FBI agents that the “violence of jihad taught by the ISIS-K recruiters was correct.”

Editor’s Note: The story was updated on 4:58pm EST on December 30, 2024 to reflect DOJ’s declining to comment on the case. It was also updated throughout for clarity and to reflect a statement from Rafi’s lawyer.