ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) — A man was sentenced to life in prison for conspiring to commit a “9/11-style terrorist attack” on Atlanta’s tallest building in 2019, according to federal prosecutors.

Cholo Abdi Abdullah, 34, of Kenya, was sentenced Monday to two consecutive life terms in prison for plotting to hijack a commercial airliner and crash it into the Bank of America Plaza building, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) said in press release Monday.

Abdullah was convicted on Nov. 4, 2024, for multiple crimes related to the terrorist plot, which Abdullah planned to commit on behalf of al-Shabaab, a terrorist organization and al Qaeda affiliate based in Somalia and active in other locations in East Africa, prosecutors said.

In May 2018, al-Shabaab announced that it would participate in “an al Qaeda-driven campaign” to retaliate against the U.S. for its decision to move its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.

The terrorist group subsequently claimed responsibility for multiple major attacks carried out as part of the operation, called “Jerusalem Will Never Be Judaized.” One of those attacks, on a hotel and office complex in Nairobi, Kenya, claimed the lives of more than 20 people, including a U.S. citizen, in 2019.

Prosecutors said Abdullah joined al-Shabaab in 2015. He spent around a year at a series of safehouses in Somalia, where he worked with high-ranking al-Shabaab members and received military-style training, including how to fire an AK-47 assault rifle and how to make different-sized explosives, according to DOJ.

During his training, he was recruited by senior al-Shabaab operatives for a “greater plan,” one that was “bigger than the fighting and the explosives.”

For that “greater plan,” Abdullah joined al-Shabaab’s international scheme to execute “a mass-casualty terrorist attack,” which involved Abdullah training to become an airline pilot so he could hijack a commercial plane and crash it into a building in the U.S.

Between October 2017 and July 2019, Abdullah became a student at a flight school in the Philippines and spent hundreds of hours training to become a commercial pilot.

Abdullah participated in training programs for his private and commercial pilot licenses, “as well as to obtain the required ratings necessary to fly commercial aircraft.”

His flight school tuition was financed by al-Shabaab, “which raises funds through an elaborate system of extortion in Somalia that it refers to as ‘taxation,’” prosecutors said.

Abdullah was arrested by authorities in the Philippines in July 2019. At the time, he had completed “all but one of the requirements for his commercial pilot licenses and had nearly completed the ‘instrument rating’ required to get a job as a pilot with a major airline.”

He was transferred to U.S. custody in December 2020.

Abdullah admitted to FBI agents that he was training to become a pilot on behalf of al-Shabaab so he could hijack a plane, DOJ said.

As part of his attack planning, he researched “certain transit visas that would allow him to enter the U.S., tested the feasibility of taking a knife on board an airplane, and admitted that he expected others to be killed or injured when he hijacked the plane.”

Abdullah also expected to die in the attack, according to DOJ.

During his flight training, Abdullah continued to research his attack plans. He searched online multiple times for information “concerning airplane cockpit doors, as well as airline jobs, instructor training, and possible interview questions for airline jobs.”

In December 2018, he searched for information about ”security on airplanes, including whether air marshals are on every flight, and ‘Boeing 737 cockpit door.’” He also visited websites discussing pilots carrying guns inside airplane cockpits, and read an article “on how to open an airplane cockpit door from the outside.”

In January 2019, he researched “Delta flights” and the “tallest building in Atlanta.” For his planning, he was “specifically focusing on the Bank of America Plaza, a 55-story building standing 1,023 feet tall, according to the website he visited as part of his research.”

Abdullah was found guilty of six counts:

• Conspiring to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization, which carries a maximum term of 20 years in prison
• Providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization, which carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison
• Conspiring to murder U.S. nationals abroad, which carries a maximum penalty of life in prison
• Conspiring to commit aircraft piracy, which carries a mandatory minimum penalty of 20 years in prison and a maximum term of life in prison
• Conspiring to destroy aircraft, which carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison
• Conspiring to commit acts of terrorism transcending national boundaries, which carries a maximum penalty of life in prison

Along with the prison term, Abdullah was also sentenced to a lifetime of supervised release.

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