A "high-level" operative of Al-Qaeda who fought against U.S. military forces in Iraq and Afghanistan pleaded guilty on May 26 to conspiring to kill Americans overseas.
Saddiq al-Abbadi, 40, admitted to conspiring to murder U.S. nationals abroad and conspiring to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization in a federal court in Brooklyn, New York.
Abbadi, who faces up to life in prison, told the court that "I and others agreed to provide material support to Al-Qaeda."
Sentencing is scheduled for September 25.
Prosecutors say Abbadi fought against U.S. military forces in Iraq between 2003 and 2007, before traveling with a co-conspirator, Ali Alvi Al-Hamidi, to Pakistan in 2008 to train and fight with Al-Qaeda.
"The defendant was a high-level Al-Qaeda operative with ties to the terrorist group's senior leadership in both Pakistan and Yemen," said the acting U.S. attorney for the eastern district of New York, Kelly Currie.