A 1980s Air Force veteran named Tairod Nathan Webster Pugh who had worked as an aviation mechanic in the Middle East was arrested on Jan. 16 and was indicted Monday in Brooklyn for allegedly trying to join ISIS.
The indictment said that Pugh was fired from a job in Kuwait as an airplane mechanic in December 2014. It said that he flew from Egypt to Turkey on January 10, in an effort to cross the border into Syria to join ISIS and wage violent jihad.
Turkish authorities denied him entry into the country, however, and sent him on a return flight to Egypt. He was deported from Egypt to the U.S. in January 15, after he was found carrying suspicious items, including a photograph of a machine gun.
Pugh is the 23rd American charged with having joined ISIS or facilitating an attempt to join ISIS, NBC reports. He was arrested in Asbury Park, New Jersey.
