A health care provider from Pakistan who stated he needed to “fight on the frontline” for the Islamic State group was sentenced on Friday to 18 years in a U.S. jail, federal prosecutors stated.

The physician, Muhammad Masood, 31, of Rochester, Minn., pleaded responsible final 12 months in U.S. District Court in St. Paul to trying to offer materials help to a terrorist group.

Prosecutors stated that Mr. Masood had expressed a want to authorities informants to conduct “lone wolf attacks” within the United States or struggle and work as a fight medic for ISIS within the Middle East.

Mr. Masood’s jail time period will likely be adopted by 5 years of supervised launch underneath the sentence handed down by Judge Paul A. Magnuson of U.S. District Court.

Mr. Masood, who labored at a analysis clinic in Rochester, was arrested in March 2020 at Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport earlier than he might board a flight to Los Angeles, the place he deliberate to board a cargo ship to journey to the Middle East and be part of the terrorist group, prosecutors stated.

In a telephone interview on Friday, Mr. Masood’s lawyer, Jordan Kushner, known as the sentence “extremely harsh” given his consumer’s historical past of psychological sickness.

In courtroom, Mr. Kushner alluded to a report from a psychiatrist who concluded that Mr. Masood’s actions ought to be understood “not as an act of devotion to violent extremism and the aims of ISIS, but as a consequence of his mental illness and multiple stressors.”

But prosecutors had requested the choose to impose the utmost penalty of 20 years in jail, saying in courtroom papers that Mr. Masood “chose a path to become a soldier and combat medic for a terrorist organization” regardless of having a profitable profession.

The investigation into Mr. Masood started in January 2020 when the authorities realized that he had sought assistance on an encrypted social media platform on “making hijra,” prosecutors stated. The time period is often utilized in Islamic State circles to point journey to territories managed by ISIS for the aim of “violent jihad,” in keeping with an affidavit ready by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Mr. Masood had been residing within the United States on an H-1B visa since 2018, and held a medical license in his native Pakistan.

On the encrypted social media platform, he related with two authorities informants who he believed to be Islamic State members who would assist him be part of the group, prosecutors stated.

In conversations with the informants, Mr. Masood expressed being “sick” of residing within the United States, and mused about finishing up lone wolf terrorist assaults, in keeping with the affidavit.

Ultimately, Mr. Masood stated he belonged on the frontline, the place he might be “a combat medic … and also fight,” in keeping with the affidavit. He initially devised a plan to achieve Syria by flying from Chicago to Jordan in March 2020, however that plan was upended when the coronavirus pandemic prompted Jordan to shut its borders, prosecutors stated.

Instead, Mr. Masood bought a ticket for a flight from Minnesota to Los Angeles, the authorities stated. On March 19, 2020, he was arrested by federal brokers at Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport.