A Connecticut man pleaded guilty on Thursday to attempting to travel to the Middle East to fight for the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), according to the U.S. Attorney for the District of Connecticut.
Kevin Iman McCormick, 29, was arrested in October 2019 at a private airport in Connecticut, where he was allegedly tried to board a flight to Canada and then to Amman, Jordan.
In the months leading up that arrest, McCormick pledged his allegiance to ISIS and its then-leader, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi.
"I gotta fight bro, because those people, Abu Masa and ISIL, they fought for me bro, I know it, I can feel it, in my heart. So it’s my time to fight… It just is what it is bro, it’s just my – it’s just my time to go bro," McCormick said in one conversation in October 2019, according to prosecutors.
McCormick later said that he wants to travel to Syria, or "whatever place I can get there the fastest, the quickest, the easiest, and where I can have a rifle and I can have some people."
"I need Islamic law, I need, that’s what I need, because if I have these things, it’s gonna to be very hard to kill me," McCormick said, according to prosecutors.
ISIS 'BEATLE' MEMBER SENTENCED TO LIFE IN PRISON FOR TERROR BEHEADINGS
Before his arrest on Oct. 19, 2019, McCormick attempted to board another flight from Connecticut to Jamaica and then Syria, but was stopped by the Department of Homeland Security.
McCormick faces up to 20 years in prison when he is sentenced on April 6.
An attorney from the federal public defender's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
