A criminal complaint was unsealed yesterday in federal court in Brooklyn charging Mohammad David Hashimi, 35, of Potomac Falls, Virginia; Abdullah At Taqi, 23, of East Elmhurst, Queens, New York; Khalilullah Yousuf, 34, of Ontario, Canada; and Seema Rahman, 25, of Edison, New Jersey, with conspiring to provide material support to the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS). Hashimi, Taqi and Rahman were arrested on Dec. 14 in Virginia, New York and New Jersey, respectively. Yousuf was also arrested on Dec. 14 in Canada by Canadian law enforcement pursuant to a provisional arrest request from the United States. Taqi and Rahman made their initial appearances in federal court in Brooklyn before Chief U.S. Magistrate Judge Cheryl L. Pollak. Hashimi made his initial appearance in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, before U.S. Magistrate Judge Ivan Davis and was ordered detained pending trial.

According to court documents, Hashimi and Yousuf were members of a group chat (referred to in the complaint as Group Chat-1) on an encrypted social media and mobile messaging electronic communication service that facilitated communication between and among supporters of ISIS and other groups that adhered to similar violent jihadist ideologies. In early April 2021, members of Group Chat-1 discussed posting donation links that purported to be for humanitarian causes but that were in fact intended to help the “mujahideen,” an Arabic term that translates to “holy warriors” that is…