An immigrant from Saudi Arabia suspected of applying to join an al-Qaeda training camp has been arrested on a visa fraud charge in Oklahoma, according to a report.
The FBI recently discovered Naif Abdulaziz Alfallaj after his fingerprints matched those taken from a document found in Afghanistan, The New York Times reported Tuesday.
The captured document was an application to join the notorious Farook camp, where four of the 9/11 hijackers were trained, according to the newspaper.
Alfallaj — who has been living in Weatherford, Okla., with his family for several years — apparently filled out the application in 2000, when he was about 17, federal law enforcement officials told the Times.
At the time, the terror group founded by Osama bin Laden had already made its intentions of attacking the US and its allies known around the world.
Anyone who tried to join the camp would have known that al-Qaeda was a terrorist organization, the feds said.
People applying to join the camp needed an invitation, as well as a reference from someone trusted by al-Qaeda, before filling out what was known as a “mujahedeen data form,” according to the report.
Recruits learned how to use weapons and explosives at the camp before joining the ranks of jihadists fighting with al-Qaeda or the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Alfallaj, 35, who came to the US in about 2011 on a nonimmigrant visa, earned his private pilot’s license in 2016, according to public records and American officials. Noncitizens are required to provide fingerprints as part of the licensing process.
The feds had been watching Alfallaj for about five months and had been trying to determine whether he was involved in terrorist activity in the US.
The FBI declined to comment to the Times, and little else was known about Alfallaj.