3 al-Shabab recruits plead guilty in Brooklyn court to US terror charges
Three men pleaded guilty Tuesday to charges they were members of the al-Qaeda offshoot that has claimed responsibility for a series of deadly attacks in Africa, including one on an upscale Kenyan shopping mall.
Ali Yasin Ahmed, Madhi Hashi and Mohamed Yusuf, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy to support terrorism, had been scheduled to go on trial early next month.
Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn had described the defendants as “dangerous and influential” members of al-Shabab who were trained to be part of an elite unit of suicide bombers. The men had “substantial knowledge regarding an al-Shabab research and development department that was developing chemical weapons for use,” the government wrote in court papers.