State News

Third Johnston family member pleads guilty to terror plot

A Johnston County man accused of plotting international terrorism with his father, brother and others pleaded guilty Wednesday.

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Dylan Boyd
NEW BERN, N.C. — A Johnston County man accused of plotting international terrorism with his father, brother and others pleaded guilty Wednesday.

Dylan "Mohammed" Boyd, 24, pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting a conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists. He will be sentenced later and faces up to 15 years in prison.

His father, the accused leader of the terrorist cell, Daniel Patrick Boyd, 41, pleaded guilty in February to charges of conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists and conspiracy to murder, kidnap, maim and injure persons in a foreign country.

Dylan Boyd's brother, Zakariya Boyd, 22, pleaded guilty in June to conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists.

A federal indictment unsealed in 2009 alleges that eight Triangle men raised money to buy assault weapons and conduct training exercises, and that they arranged overseas travel and contacts to help others carry out violent acts on behalf of a radical jihadist political agenda.

The indictment paints Daniel Boyd, a drywall contractor, as an experienced jihadist who traveled to Afghanistan in 1989 to join the fight against Soviet occupation.

Prosecutors played audio tapes at a 2009 court hearing of Daniel Boyd talking about his disgust with the U.S. military, the honor of martyrdom and the need to protect Muslims.

The FBI said its 2009 search of Boyd's home in Willow Spring turned up about two dozen guns and more than 27,000 rounds of ammunition. Authorities have previously said the men trained in the weeks leading up to their arrest, practicing military tactics with armor-piercing bullets in Caswell County.

Three other men charged in the case – Mohammad Omar Aly Hassan, 23, Ziyad Yaghi, 22, and Hysen Sherifi, 26 – are scheduled to go on trial next week. A trial date for a seventh defendant, Anes Subasic, 34, hasn't been set.

Authorities believe another man charged in the case, Jude Kenan Mohammad, 22, is in Pakistan, although The Wall Street Journal reported last week that he was tied to a threatened terrorist attack in New York or Washington, D.C., on the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

A ninth member of the group, Bajram Asllani, 30, was arrested in Kosovo last year, but the U.S. doesn't have an extradition treaty with that country.

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