North Carolina man tried to board a flight to join the Islamic State group, authorities say

A North Carolina man was arrested while trying to board an overseas flight so that he could join the Islamic State group, according to a federal complaint that was unsealed Tuesday.

Alexander Justin White, a U.S. citizen from Durham, is accused of providing, attempting and conspiring to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization by federal prosecutors. White’s Dec. 4 arrest came after a monthslong investigation into numerous pro-IS messages that prosecutors say the 29-year-old sent to various Facebook users and an undercover FBI agent.

White, who went by Sulaiman Al-Amriki — which means Sulaiman the American — on social media for part of last year, posted pro-IS content several times on Facebook between June and October 2024, prosecutors said. Some of the content included IS and other Islamic extremist propaganda videos.

During this period, federal prosecutors said White spoke to several social media users who claimed to be from the Middle East and North Africa about his support for IS. He told several users that he wished to travel to Africa to join IS as well, according to court documents. White also lamented missed opportunities to join the militant group in previous trips — such as in a 2018 visit to Egypt — in conversations online, authorities said.

White also conversed frequently with a covert FBI agent over several months, which included several mentions of wanting to join IS and a staged video call that White believed was with an IS commander’s spokesperson, prosecutors said.

During text conversations with the agent, officials said White expressed his willingness to be a mujahid, the Arabic word for “holy warrior,” and discussed fundraising for detained IS members and their family members.

After several months of discussing his plans to travel abroad and join IS, White sent the agent a screenshot of his upcoming travel itinerary, which showed a Dec. 4 flight departing from the Raleigh-Durham International Airport to Rabat, Morocco, court records show.

To not raise suspicions about the flight, White purchased a round-trip ticket, prosecutors said.

White later arrived on Dec. 4 with three bags at RDU Airport, where he checked in for his connecting flight to Paris and proceeded through security, authorities said. He was then arrested a few hours later while attempting to board the plane.

A federal public defender who was appointed to represent White declined to comment about the pending case on Wednesday.

Makiya Seminera, The Associated Press