Court Papers Say Minnesota Teen Joined ISIS

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Authorities say an 18-year-old college student from suburban Minneapolis left his family while on vacation in Morocco two years ago and joined the Islamic State group in Syria.

The Star Tribune reports that according to newly unsealed court documents it reviewed, Abdelhamid Al-Madioum apparently booked a flight to Turkey, from which many aspiring IS militants cross into Syria.

Al-Madioum's family told the FBI that he called them shortly after they returned to the U.S. and said he was working in a hospital in Mosul, Iraq, which was then under the IS control. But the paper reports that a member of the FBI's joint terrorism task force wrote that new recruits commonly misinform loved ones about their actual locations and activities so as not to cause distress to loved ones.

The FBI and the U.S. Attorney's office in Minneapolis would not comment. A woman and man who answered the phone at the family's new address declined to comment to the newspaper.

Nine Minnesota men were sentenced last year for plotting unsuccessfully to join IS.