Kenyan terrorist took flight lessons, researched skyscrapers for 9/11-style terror attack: feds

A Kenyan man has been sentenced to life in prison for plotting a 9/11-inspired attack on Atlanta, Georgia — even training overseas with the terror group al-Shabaab and taking flight lessons.

Cholo Abdi Abdullah, 35, was hit with two life sentences on Monday for the terror scheme, in which he also researched tall skyscrapers in the capital of the Peach State to target.

“Abdullah pursued his commercial pilot license at a flight school in the Philippines while conducting extensive attack planning on how to hijack a commercial plane and crash it into a building in America,” New York Southern District US Attorney General Jay Clayton said in a statement Monday.

“As he later admitted to the FBI, he was fully prepared to die in his terrorist attack,” Clayton said.

Federal prosecutors said Abdullah joined al-Shabaab, an Islamist extremist militant group and designated terrorist organisation, in 2015.

He spent about a year in Somali safehouses for military-style training, which included how to make explosives and fire an AK-47 assault rifle.

Between October 2017 and July 2019, Abdullah trained at a flight school in the Philippines, working toward a commercial pilot’s license — with al-Shabaab picking up the tab, the feds said.

In January 2019, Abdullah’s “handler” with the terror group briefed him on plans for a suicide bomber attack, and he later went online searching for info on “Delta flights” and “tallest buildings in Atlanta.”

However, he was arrested in July 2019 and transferred to US custody in December 2020.

He was found guilty of six federal counts on Nov. 4, 2024, including conspiring to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization, conspiring to murder US nationals abroad, and conspiring to commit acts of terrorism transcending national boundaries, prosecutors said.

“Al Qaeda affiliated terrorist and trained pilot Cholo Abdullah was justly punished today for his plotting to commit a 9/11-style terrorist attack,” FBI Assistant Director in Charge Christopher Raia said.

“This case serves as reminder individuals still wish to inflict violence upon our country in the name of the terrorism.”