2 men plead guilty to plotting to use pressure-cooker bomb

Two men have pleaded guilty to conspiring to support ISIS and plotting to use a pressure- cooker bomb to conduct a terrorist attack in the US on behalf of the dreaded terror group.
Munther Omar Saleh, 21 of Queens and his co-defendant Fareed Mumuni, 22 of Staten Island pleaded guilty at the federal courthouse in Brooklyn to all charges in an indictment charging them with conspiring and attempting to provide material support to ISIS, the Department of Justice said in a statement here yesterday.
Saleh faces up to 53 years of imprisonment at sentencing, while Mumuni faces up to 85 years of imprisonment.

As alleged in the indictment and in other court filings, Saleh and Mumuni conspired to support ISIS by helping their co-conspirators attempt to travel to ISIS-controlled territory in order to join the term group and by plotting to use a pressure-cooker bomb to conduct a terrorist attack in the New York metropolitan area on behalf of ISIS.
Working with ISIS fighters located overseas, Saleh and Mumuni coordinated their plot to conduct a terrorist attack in New York City. Saleh sought and received instructions from an ISIS attack facilitator to create a pressure-cooker bomb and discussed with the same facilitator potential targets for a terrorist attack in New York City.

Saleh also informed ISIS fighters that his co-conspirators-five individuals located in New York and New Jersey-had confronted law enforcement officers who were surveilling them continuously.
Saleh was arrested in Queens in June 2015 and he admitted to agents that he had discussed with Mumuni physically attacking the law enforcement officers who were surveilling Mumuni. Later in 2015, during the execution of a search warrant at his residence in Staten Island, Mumuni was arrested after he repeatedly stabbed an FBI agent in the torso with a large kitchen knife.
"The guilty pleas show just how close the threat of homegrown terrorism exists for New York City. From their respective homes in Queens and Staten Island, Saleh and Mumuni conspired to place a pressure cooker bomb in the New York metro area on behalf of ISIS," Assistant Director-in-Charge William Sweeney said.