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A Kenyan man will spend the rest of his life in prison after a jury convicted him in November 2024 of plotting a 9/11-style terrorist attack by hijacking a commercial aircraft and targeting the tallest building in Atlanta, Georgia.
“Prosecutors identified the suspect as Cholo Abdi Abdullah, who began planning the attack in 2015. According to court documents, Abdullah received military-style training, including instruction in weapons and explosives, before being recruited into a broader international terrorist operation,” Rawsalerts wrote.
“He later pursued a commercial pilot’s license in the Philippines between 2017 and 2019, logging hundreds of flight hours paid for by al-Shabaab. Abdullah admitted That plan obtaining pilot training so he could carry out a suicide attack by hijacking a commercial aircraft and crashing it into a U.S. building as he was prepared to die in the attack. He has been sentenced to life in federal prison,” the post added.
🚨#BREAKING: Kenyan Man has Received Two Life Sentences for Plot to Hijack Commercial Plane and Crash It Into Atlanta’s Tallest Building in a 9/11 style attack
FBI and law enforcement agencies have foiled a 9/11 spired terrorist plot involving a Kenyan… pic.twitter.com/BYx3mJFyRH
— R A W S A L E R T S (@rawsalerts) December 25, 2025
CBS News provided further info:
On Monday, a federal judge sentenced 34-year-old Cholo Abdi Abdullah to two consecutive life sentences as well as a lifetime of supervised release for planning to hijack a commercial airliner and targeting Atlanta’s 55-story Bank of America Plaza as part of a campaign by Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahideen, commonly known as al-Shabaab.
In 2024, a jury in Manhattan found Abdullah guilty on six counts: conspiring to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization, providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization, conspiring to murder U.S. nationals abroad, conspiring to commit aircraft piracy, conspiring to destroy aircraft, and conspiring to commit acts of terrorism transcending national boundaries.
Kenyan terrorist took flight lessons, researched skyscrapers for 9/11-style terror attack: feds https://t.co/nxiDasMuvq pic.twitter.com/9QNGvq2Bzs
— New York Post (@nypost) December 23, 2025
“He agreed to join al-Shabaab’s international scheme to execute a mass-casualty terrorist attack, which would involve Abdullah training to become an airline pilot so that he could hijack a commercial plane and crash it into a building in the U.S.,” a press release from the Justice Department read.
“Abdullah, an al-Shabaab terrorist, sought to replicate the most horrific terrorist attack in our history, as he prepared to hijack a commercial airliner to take down a building on U.S. soil. We thwarted this plot due to the relentless efforts of U.S. law enforcement and thereby likely saved many innocent lives. His life sentence is a powerful reminder that those who plot attacks against the United States will be prosecuted and punished to the fullest extent of the law,” Assistant Attorney General for National Security John A. Eisenberg said.
“Cholo Abdi Abdullah was a highly trained al-Shabaab operative who was dedicated to recreating the horrific September 11 terrorist attacks on behalf of a vicious terrorist organization,” said U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton.
“Abdullah pursued his commercial pilot license at a flight school in the Philippines while conducting extensive attack planning on how to hijack a commercial plane and crash it into a building in America. As he later admitted to the FBI, he was fully prepared to die in his terrorist attack. I commend the years of outstanding investigative work of the FBI and the career prosecutors of this Office who disrupted Abdullah’s murderous plot and brought him to face justice in a U.S. court. He will now spend [decades] behind bars, where he will not be able to harm innocent Americans,” Clayton continued.
USA TODAY noted:
Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahideen, commonly called al-Shabaab, is a terrorist organization operating out of Somalia and eastern Africa. The leader of the group swore allegiance to al Qaeda in 2012 following the death of Osama bin Laden, according to the DOJ.
The organization released a statement in 2008, shortly after the United States deemed al-Shabaab a terrorist organization, declaring intent to target the United States, and that the group’s “fighters” would hunt down members of the government.
The group had carried out multiple attacks against U.S. citizens, including in 2019 when a suicide bomber targeted an American in Nairobi, Kenya, killing him and 20 more people in the attack.