File photo of Islamic State group members. (AFP).
A 17-year-old American today pleaded guilty for helping a classmate get to Syria to join the Islamic State militant group and providing material support to the dreaded terrorist organisation.
Ali Shukri Amin admitted to using Twitter to provide advice and encouragement to IS and its supporters. He eventually gained roughly 4,000 followers and posted over 7,000 tweets.
"Ali Shukri Amin is a 17-year-old American who pleaded guilty to providing material support to ISIL (IS), and he used social media to do so," said John Carlin, Assistant Attorney General.
"Around the nation, we are seeing ISIL use social media to reach out from the other side of the world. Their messages are reaching America in an attempt to radicalise, recruit and incite our youth and others to support ISIL's violent causes," he said.
Amin provided instructions on Twitter on how to use Bitcoin, a virtual currency, to mask the provision of funds to IS as well as facilitation to its supporters seeking to travel to Syria to fight with the dreaded organisation.
Amin was arrested in March at his home in the suburb of Woodbridge, Virginia, where he attended high school.
Additionally, Amin admitted that he facilitated travel for Reza Niknejad, an 18-year-old Prince William County resident, who traveled to Syria to join IS in January 2015.
Niknejad was charged yesterday in the Eastern District of Virginia with conspiring to provide material support to terrorists, conspiring to provide material support to IS and conspiring to kill and injure people abroad.
He faces a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison if convicted.
ISIS or IS is an al-Qaeda splinter group and it has seized hundreds of square miles in Iraq and Syria.