Queens Man Admits He Repeatedly Tried To Join ISIS In Syria: Feds

QUEENS, NY -- A 25-year-old Queens man who proclaimed he was "ready to die" for ISIS now faces decades behind bars after he admitted on Tuesday to repeatedly trying to fly out to the Middle East to join the terrorist group, federal prosecutors said.

Ali Saleh, of Jamaica , pleaded guilty in a Brooklyn federal courthouse to attempting to support to the extremist group, short for the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, between August 2014 and September 2015.

During that time, Saleh tried to board planes to the Middle East to join ISIS, funded other overseas fighters in the terrorist group, posted instructions online to make explosive devices and transported explosives himself, said U.S. Attorney Richard Donoghue.

“The defendant’s persistent efforts to aid ISIS were defeated by the outstanding work of law enforcement officers who stopped him before he could do harm,” Donoghue said.

Those efforts began after Saleh became interested in the conflict in Syria in 2013, which eventually prompted him to swear allegiance to ISIS in an Aug. 25, 2014 tweet that read," I'm ready to die for the Caliphate, prison is nothing."

Four days later, Saleh booked a plane ticket from New York to Turkey, but the trip was thwarted when his parents took away his passport, court documents state.

Saleh then turned his efforts to aiding others ISIS supporters, wiring $500 to one in Mali for a trip to Syria and communicating online with several others in the United Kingdom and Australia, according to court filings.

Investigators also found a pamphlet on Saleh's phone from July 2015 with detailed instructions for creating a bomb with the explosive powder from fireworks. Around the same time, he bought fireworks in Indiana and drove them back to New York City in the trunk of his car, prosecutors said.

On July 24, 2015 Saleh began the first of several more attempts to fly to the Middle East. He was denied entrance first to a flight out of John F. Kennedy International Airport, and then to three more at international airports in Newark, Philadelphia and Indianapolis. Saleh tried to fly out of Canada after taking a train from Cleveland, but was again stopped by law enforcement and returned to New York.

Saleh then took to social media yet again to express his support for ISIS in a slew of tweets under new usernames, one of which stated "I am a terrorist" in August 2015.

He was arrested that September on two counts of attempting to provide material support to ISIS and faces up to 35 years in prison.

Lead Image: An Islamic State flag flies in the northern Syrian town of Tel Abyad as it is pictured from the Turkish border town of Akcakale on June 15, 2015. Photo by Gokhan Sahin/Getty Images