By Benadeta Mwaura - Reporter
United States, 23 December 2025 - A Kenyan member of the Somalia-based militant group al-Shabaab has been sentenced to life in prison in the United States for conspiring to carry out a September 11-style terrorist attack on American soil, in a plot federal authorities say was intended to mimic the horrific 2001 attacks.
Cholo Abdi Abdullah, 35, received two consecutive life prison terms on 22 December 2025, after being convicted in November 2024 by a federal jury in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
Prosecutors said Abdullah’s plans involved hijacking a commercial airliner and crashing it into a high-rise building as a mass-casualty attack.
“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,” said U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton in a statement.
“He will now spend life behind bars, where he will not be able to harm innocent Americans.”
Federal prosecutors outlined a meticulously planned operation in court filings and the government’s sentencing memorandum:
Abdullah joined al-Shabaab in 2015 and spent time in safehouses in Somalia undergoing militant training, including weapons and explosives instruction as part of an international attack strategy.
Between 2017 and 2019, he attended flight school in the Philippines, where he was reportedly financed by the militant group to pursue both private and commercial pilot licenses, nearly completing the requirements for a commercial pilot’s license before his arrest.
During this period, he actively researched how to enter the United States with a transit visa, studied cockpit security, airline operations and specific targets, including Atlanta’s Bank of America Plaza, one of the tallest structures in the Southeastern United States.
Prosecutors said that in pursuit of his plan to commit mass casualties, Abdullah even researched which airline seats would allow access near cockpit doors and how hijackings could be executed, planning that experts say echoed elements of the 9/11 attacks.
According to court records, he admitted to FBI agents that he intended to die in the attack.
Abdullah was arrested in the Philippines in July 2019 when authorities there found bomb-making materials in his possession. He was subsequently transferred to U.S. custody in December 2020 and was indicted on multiple offenses, including:
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1. Conspiring to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organisation
2. Conspiring to murder U.S. nationals abroad
3. Conspiring to commit aircraft piracy and destroy aircraft
4. Conspiring to commit acts of terrorism transcending national boundaries
Each of these carries maximum penalties ranging from decades to life imprisonment.
After a jury found him guilty on all counts at a trial that concluded on November 4, 2024, a federal judge imposed the life sentences, a punishment intended both as retribution for the threat posed and as a deterrent to future terrorism.
Abdullah’s case highlights ongoing global counterterrorism cooperation. The prosecution and sentence were made possible by coordination among multiple agencies, including the FBI’s New York Joint Terrorism Task Force, U.S. Department of Justice, the Kenyan Directorate of Criminal Investigations and Anti-Terrorism Police Unit, and law enforcement partners in the Philippines.
Al-Shabaab, which emerged as a powerful militant group in Somalia and has links to al-Qaeda, remains designated a terrorist organisation by the United States and other countries, and this case is a stark reminder that the threat of extremist violence persists long after major symbolic attacks like those of September 11, 2001.
The life sentence for Cholo Abdi Abdullah serves multiple purposes:
It underscores the severity with which the U.S. treats terrorist plots aimed at civilian targets, it demonstrates the long reach of international counterterrorism efforts involving partnerships across continents, and, It reflects both the continuing ambitions of extremist groups and the capacity of global law enforcement to detect, disrupt and prosecute such plans before they can be carried out.
