Maryland (US), Jan.10 (ANI): A former U.S. Army soldier and recent convert to Islam has been charged with attempting to join an al Qaeda-linked terrorist group in Somalia.
The indictment of Craig Baxam, 24, comes just days after the Kenyan and British governments announced they were seeking several British citizens who had allegedly joined the same terror group, al Shabaab, and plotted attacks in Kenya, the ABC News reports.
Baxam, who appeared in federal court in Maryland, faces a charge of attempting to provide material support to a terrorist group.
Authorities alleged that Baxam flew to Kenya with the intention of crossing into Somalia to join al Shabaab, which has been responsible for terror attacks in Somalia, Kenya and Uganda.
Baxam, from Laurel, Maryland, served four years in the Army before being discharged last July.
Al Shabaab, which means the "lads" in Arabic, has waged a decade-long insurgency inside Somalia and more recently has conducted attacks outside the lawless country.
In 2010 an al Shabaab suicide attack killed more than 76 people in Kampala, Uganda.
The group recently announced that they were sending teams of attackers to Kenyan capital Nairobi in response to recent the Kenyan military incursion into southern Somalia. (ANI)
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