Abdirizak Warsame (born 1995) was an American Islamic State sympathizer who was arrested on 9 December 2015 for attempting to travel to Syria.
History[]
Abdirizak Warsame was from Eagan, Minnesota, coming from a family of Sunni Muslim Somali-Americans in the Twin Cities region. He worked as a security guard before planning, along with 10 other Somali-Americans, to travel to Syria to fight with the Islamic State in the Syrian Civil War. On 9 December 2015 he was arrested before he could go to Syria, one of the many people from Minnesota to be arrested for "attempting to provide material support to ISIL" (Minnesota had the most ISIS sympathizers in the USA). In October 2016, he appeared in a 60 Minutes documentary with journalist Scott Pelley, and he expressed remorse for his actions, saying that he was responsible for the deaths of some of his companions who had made it to Syria. Warsame had the potential to face fifteen years in prison, and he accepted the fact that he was to blame for becoming a terrorist, not blaming others for influencing him.