Kenyan jailed in US over terror plot akin to Sept 11

Abdi Adbullah Cholo, a Kenyan, was recently jailed for life in the US after he was found guilty of planning a terrorist attack similar to 9/11.

Abdullah, 35, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres on December 22, 2025, after he was convicted of multiple crimes that included conspiring to provide and providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization.

He was also convicted of conspiring to murder U.S. nationals, commit aircraft piracy, destroy aircraft, and commit acts of terrorism transcending national boundaries.

He was convicted by a jury on November 4.

“Cholo Abdi Abdullah was a highly trained al-Shabaab operative who was dedicated to recreating the horrific September 11 terrorist attacks on behalf of a vicious terrorist organization,” said U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton.

Clayton added that Cholo was in the country to pursuing his commercial pilot license as he planned to hijack an aeroplane and crash it into one of the buildings in the US aping the 9/11 attack.

The planning of the attack took place in the Philippines as well.

While taking his lessons, Cholo was busy researching how to crash a plane and some of the tallest buildings in the US on his laptop but little did he know that authorities were onto him.

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

He was arrested in 2019 and extradited to the US where he was indicted on the charges in 2020.

Court documents tabled in the US showed that Cholo was a member of the Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahideen, alias Al-Shabaab which is an affiliate of Al Qaeda based in Somalia.

He chose to represent himself during the trial.

Isiolo trio join Al Shabaab

Sources in security agencies in Kenya said that he was attended the Isiolo High School alongside Dusit D2 attack mastermind Ali Salim Gichunge and Rashid Mwalimu and the trio left Kenya for Somalia sometime in 2015.

Cholo took a bus to El-Wak, Mandera County, and then illegally crossed into Somalia using motorbike and police believe that a raid on the famous Masjid Musa Mosque in Mombasa in the early 2010’s is what may have inspired him to join the terror group.

Gichunge, whose father is an army man, was recruited from a cyber café where he worked after scoring grade C in the national exam.

He wanted to pursue journalism but due to lack of fees he opted to work at the café in Kula Mawe, Isiolo County, and so good was he at the work that he even got a salary raise.

According to his family he waited for his mother to travel to Eldoret for a wedding before he left for Somalia.

In a past interview with The Standard his mother Sakina Mariam, said that he told her in a phone call that he went to Mombasa where he had a brief stay working in construction before moving to Lamu from where he stayed for a few days before crossing over to Somalia.

Little is known about one third of the trio, Rashid Mwalimu, but intelligence sources that he was part of an 18-member team that received training in Somalia.

He remains at large to date and is wanted by Kenyan authorities for terror related activities.

During the training exercises, the three men stood out and they were tasked with carrying several attacks in Kenya and the interests of the US.

The 18 young men were tasked with carrying out improvised explosive device (IED) attacks in Ras Kamboni to prevent the government from building a wall.

Their other assignment was the abduction of tourists along Kenya’s coast.

Cholo was a media student at the University of Nairobi, while Gichunge was internet savvy while Mwalimu was a bright unlike the rest of the group.

They were singled out for leadership roles, Gichunge was to lead the Dusit D2 attack while Cholo and Mwalimu were to study aviation to carry attacks using planes targeting Kenya, the United States, and the United Kingdom.

This plan was highly guarded that it was only known to Abu Ubeidah, the terror group's leader who was also in the know about the Dusit attack.

Intelligence reports shows that Al-Shabaab spent between $160,000 and $200,000 to facilitate Cholo and Mwalimu’s education as private pilots at All Asia Aviation Academy in the Philippines.

The two moved to the country via South Africa in 2016.

According to US authorities, in October 2018, Cholo visited a webpage that compiled jihadist propaganda material about al-Qaeda's 9/11 attacks.

In December of the same year, US authorities said that Cholo went online again to research, among many other things, the security of commercial airlines and how to breach the cockpit door from outside.

As Cholo’s online activities gave him away and he was arrested the following year in 2019, Mwalimu got wind of the plan to arrest him and he fled and it is believed he moved back to Somalia.

During their training as pilots, Gichunge had already been activated for an assignment in Nairobi alongside Mahir Riziki, Osman Gedi, Adan Mohamed Noor and Siyat Omar Abdi.

This was back in 2018 when Gichunge moved to Kenya and took cover by courting Violet Kemunto and the two got married at a wedding that was not attended by any of his family members.

During this time the terror group was plotting to bomb KICC using a car bomb with bomb expert and current Deputy Inspector General of Police Eliud Lagat testifying that the explosion would have affected Parliament, Harambee House, City Hall and Supreme Court buildings.

The attack was thwarted when the vehicle that had been installed with a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device was intercepted in Isiolo County.

Intelligence sources believe that the intelligence that had been collected by the terror group which included one of the operatives, Victor Odede Bwire, taking several trips to Mandera county using a vehicle and motorcycle was used to facilitate the Dusit attack.

Bwire was jailed for 30 years in 2023 for conspiracy to attack KICC.

After this 2018 plan failed, Gichunge got into action and scouted several places for attack including the Two Rivers Mall and the Dusit complex.

On January 15, 2019, they struck Dusit, Riziki was the first to blow himself up outside the Secret Garden restaurant then Gichunge, Noor, Gedi and Abdi struck shooting dead occupants of the complex.

By the time the General Service Unit’s Recce Unit under the command of current Inspector General of Police Douglas Kanja neutralised the terrorists and cleared the complex, 21 people had been killed and several injured.

The attack accelerated the interest of Cholo and he got busy increasing his online activities

After the Dusit attack he went online again, this time looking into how to obtain a US visa and researching aircraft hijackings all during this time he would communicate with his handler in Jilib, Somalia.

It was revealed in Kenyan courts that Gichunge and Cholo shared a handler who masterminded the Dusit attack.

By the time Cholo was arrested, he had completed all but one of the requirements for commercial pilot licenses and had nearly completed “instrument rating” required to get a job as a pilot with a major airline.