Three Americans Charged in Multi-State FBI Operation for Conspiring to Fund and Support ISIS
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The Justice Department charged three US citizens on June 8 with conspiring to provide material support to ISIS following a 16-month FBI investigation spanning Kansas and California. The suspects communicated through Discord, collectively pledged bay'ah to the ISIS caliph, transferred over $2,000 to a person they believed was an ISIS operative, and expressed intent to facilitate drone strikes against US Special Forces and conduct stabbing attacks on US servicemembers.
ANALYSIS
Bisaam Ghafoor, 21, of Leawood, Kansas; Elias Shamsaldeen, 21, of Porterville, California; and Bereen Dzayee, 25, of Lakeside, California were arrested on June 8 and charged in the District of Kansas. The criminal complaint describes a conspiracy running from at least February 2025 through June 2026. The three communicated primarily through Discord voice calls and group messaging, where they pledged allegiance to the Islamic State and its current leader. They sent what they believed was financial support to an ISIS operative, totaling over $2,000 across the conspiracy period.
The operational language in the complaint is significant. Ghafoor expressed enthusiasm for having his name "written on the drone" used in an attack against Americans, indicating a desire for personal attribution in a future strike. Dzayee proposed that US Special Forces should be targeted by drone. Shamsaldeen expressed a desire to stab and injure a US servicemember. Taken together, these statements reflect a group that had moved beyond passive ideological support into active identification of US military personnel as attack targets, with discussion of specific weapons platforms and methods. The FBI appears to have used at least one undercover operative or cooperating individual who received the financial transfers and recorded the group's communications.
The geographic distribution of Leawood, Porterville, and Lakeside indicates the network operated entirely online, consistent with ISIS-affiliated recruitment and radicalization that has increasingly relied on gaming platforms and encrypted chat since 2019. The charges are brought under 18 USC 2339B, which does not require an attack to have been operationally planned; providing money, personnel, or services to a designated foreign terrorist organization satisfies the statute. Sentencing exposure is substantial: up to 20 years per count.
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