August 9, 2025 • 60 mins
*** Content warnings: Terrorism, gun violence ***
In late 2015, a young pizza delivery man named Khalil Abu Rayyan from Dearborn Heights, Michigan, met and fell in love with a woman he met online. Jannah Bride had approached Khalil via the social media platform Twitter, and the two soon became close.
Over the course of several months, Khalil would start admitting disturbing things to Jannah – fantasies he had about harming others. But nothing in the relationship was as it seemed…
---
Narration – Anonymous HostResearch & writing – Erin MunroCreative direction – Milly RasoProduction & music – Mike MigasAudio editing – Anthony Telfer
Sign up for Casefile Premium:For all credits and sources, please visit https://casefilepodcast.com/case-324-khalil-rayyan Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
In late 2015, a young pizza delivery man named Khalil Abu Rayyan from Dearborn Heights, Michigan, met and fell in love with a woman he met online. Jannah Bride had approached Khalil via the social media platform Twitter, and the two soon became close.
Over the course of several months, Khalil would start admitting disturbing things to Jannah – fantasies he had about harming others. But nothing in the relationship was as it seemed…
---
Narration – Anonymous HostResearch & writing – Erin MunroCreative direction – Milly RasoProduction & music – Mike MigasAudio editing – Anthony Telfer
Sign up for Casefile Premium:For all credits and sources, please visit https://casefilepodcast.com/case-324-khalil-rayyan Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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on your preferred platform. One day in December twenty fifteen,
(02:03):
a twenty one year old man from Michigan admitted something
very disturbing to his girlfriend. Khalil Ryan had met nineteen
year old Janna Bright just a couple of months earlier
via the social media platform Twitter. The two had bonded
over shared interests and commonalities. Both were from strict Muslim
(02:25):
families and lived in the city of Detroit. As they
were unable to date openly the way other young people
in the United States typically would, their relationship had moved
quickly and they were already discussing marriage as a way
to be together. Khalil and Janna would often talk about
heavy topics, including violent crimes committed by the terrorist group
(02:49):
Islamic State. During one such conversation in December twenty fifteen,
Khlil made an alarming confession. He told Janna quote, I
tried to shoot up a church one day. I don't
know the name of it, but it's close to my job.
It's one of the biggest ones in Detroit. Yeah, I
(03:12):
had it planned out. I bought a bunch of bullets.
I practiced a lot with it. I practiced reloading and unloading.
But my dad searched my car one day and he
found everything. He found the gun and the bullets and
a mask I was going to wear. Khalil said he'd
(03:34):
decided to attack a church because it was an easy target.
Lots of people would be in attendance and would be unarmed,
Plus it would make the news. He added he had
an AK forty seven rifle, so he would be capable
of shooting many victims. When Janna asked Khalil if he
(03:56):
would have shot women and children at the church as
well as men, he responded, I would have killed every
last one of them. I would have shown no mercy.
(04:31):
Khalil Rayan was raised in the Detroit suburb of Dearborn Heights,
which had a large Arab American population. Many women in
the area wore he japs, a head covering wrapped over
the hair and beneath the chin. Some men wore long,
loose fitting robes known as a thobe, and the Calder
(04:51):
prayer could be heard echoing through parts of the suburb
five times a day. Khalil was the son of Palla
Yxtinian immigrants, though his parents split up when he was three,
He was then primarily raised by his father's family, and
he received plenty of love and care while at home.
(05:12):
He had six younger siblings and step siblings. But despite
growing up in an Arab American family and neighborhood, Khalil
felt torn between two worlds. He also wanted to be
an ordinary American kid, so he sometimes went by the
nicknames Kay or Ray to sound less foreign. In September
(05:36):
two thousand one, when Khalil was seven years old, the
nine eleven attacks changed everything. They were committed by nineteen terrorists,
all of whom were extremist Muslims affiliated with the jihadest
group Al Qaeda, an armed militant organization dedicated to establishing
fundamentalist Islamic states. Suddenly, some people in Khalil's community began
(06:02):
looking at him differently. He was bullied at school for
his heritage and began lying about his background, telling people
he was Hispanic or Italian. Although he lived in a
strong Arab American community in a broader sense, Khalil felt
like an outsider. As he grew older, he became more troubled.
(06:27):
At the age of twelve, he had a dream that
he took a gun to school and shot his entire class.
He later told a teacher about the nightmare, and he
was referred to counseling. As a teenager, Khalil developed a
reputation for being a class clown at the Charter High
school he attended, where the other students were also of
(06:49):
mostly Muslim and Arab descent, but he also became the
target of bullies and was given suspension on at least
three separate occasions after getting into fights. While his home
life was stable, Khalil struggled with his peers and with depression.
(07:10):
By the age of seventeen, he'd started using cannabis. It
was after graduating, however, that Khalil's problems escalated. He briefly
attended college, but his poor mental health and drug use
led to him failing his classes. He decided to essentially
drop out and take a break from studying to work
(07:32):
full time as a pizza delivery driver. Khalil's father was
an engineer with two master's degrees, and he also owned
a pizzarea. Working for his father at the pizzeria seemed
like a good solution. However, without the structure of school
and the friends he'd previously seen daily, Khalil's depression worsened.
(07:57):
His job was isolating, involving long hours alone in a car,
sometimes up to seventy hours a week. Khalil became even
more dependent on drugs, often smoking between deliveries to curb
his boredom and a low mood. By the age of nineteen,
he was often smoking between ten and fifteen cannabis joints
(08:20):
a day. To make matters worse, Khalil often felt unsafe
while working. Detroit could be a dangerous city, and Khalil
was generally working late at night. He had to deliver
pizza at sketchy looking apartment buildings or on blocks with
no porch lights to aid visibility. On more than one occasion,
(08:44):
Khalil would pull up at an address to deliver a
peter only to find it was an abandoned house and
there were people waiting there to jump and rob him.
Sometimes Khalil was even robbed at gunpoint. Feeling lonely, angry,
and powerless, Khalil suffered something of an identity crisis, wondering
(09:09):
who he was and where he belonged. He began spending
his free time retreating online to seek out a sense
of belonging with other young Muslims his age. Then he
started seeking out shocking and graphic content as a distraction
from his own feelings. Seeing real gore and violence just
(09:30):
felt like an escalation from watching an action movie. It
involved the same shock and awe on a heightened level.
By this time, it was twenty fourteen and the actions
of the terrorist group Islamic State or IS had captured
the world's attention. Militants from MIS had taken over large
(09:54):
territories in eastern Syria, where there was an ongoing civil war,
and a northwestern Ira where local military forces were dwindling.
ISS declared itself to bear a caliphate, the term for
a state under the leadership of a religious Muslim considered
a successor to the Islamic prophet Muhammad is adheres to
(10:18):
a radical pro Sunni Islamist ideology and seeks to establish
a global colorphate through armed struggle. It was designated as
a terrorist organization by the United States government in April
twenty fourteen, as they conquered parts of Syria and Iraq.
(10:38):
Is became known for their use of social media to
disseminate their message. They posted news, photos and videos on
Twitter as a way to reach a broader audience beyond
their geographical borders and radicalize sympathetic individuals abroad. Iss also
became known for their brutality. Much of the content they
(11:02):
shared featured shocking acts of violence against those they deemed
their enemies. One such video was of a Jordanium pilot
they had captured being set on fire and burned to death.
Others showed men who were suspected by Is of being
gay being thrown off a high rise building as a
(11:24):
form of execution. Is also used public beheadings to terrorize
and punish, and filmed soldiers, journalists, aid workers and others
being killed this way. In one incident, a French citizen
and mountaineering guide named Erve Gordel was kidnapped in Algeria,
(11:46):
then held hostage before being beheaded. This crime was filmed
and released online under the title a Message of Blood
for French Government. Khalil Rayan had a Twitter account using
the handle at Khalil ray twenty one. In November twenty fourteen,
(12:10):
he started seeking out iss content. He liked propaganda posts
about their victories, including videos of beheadings and the Jordanian
pilot's murder. Sometimes he would retweet posts, resharing them on
his own profile, or reply with a comment. In one instance,
(12:31):
he asked another Twitter user if they had a link
to a video showing people being thrown from a tall building.
When the other user shared it with him, Khalil replied, thanks,
that made my day. Khalil sent some photos of beheadings
to his brother. He saved one such photo as the
(12:54):
screensaver on his smartphone. Emboldened by the online ward he
was falling into, Khalil took a photograph of himself and
two friends, all dressed in camouflage. Khalil was holding a
semi automatic pistol in his right hand. His left hand
was pointing skyward his index finger raised. This gesture was
(13:19):
a commonly acknowledged sign of support for Islamic state known
as the torheed, a term referring to the oneness of God.
Neither of Khalil's friends were making the gesture. On Thursday
February nineteen, twenty fifteen, Khalil shared this photograph on his
Twitter account. Throughout twenty fifteen, Khalil continued to immerse himself
(13:48):
in ias content. After clocking off from work late in
the year, he decided to buy a gun. On Monday,
October five, Khalil into a Dearborn Heights sporting goods store
and purchased a twenty two caliber revolver. To complete the purchase,
he had to fill out a form required by the
(14:10):
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, commonly known as the ATF.
Question eleven E on the form asked, are you an
unlawful user of or addicted to marijuana or any depressant, stimulant,
narcotic drug, or any other controlled substance. Khalil checked no
(14:33):
and signed the form. Two days later, Khalil left work
and got into his two thousand and one Buick Century.
As he was driving away from the pizzeria, he noticed
two police cars with their lights on, signaling him to
pull over. Khalil did so at a nearby intersection. The
(14:56):
officers approached him on foot with their weapons drawn, later
savedying that as they did so, they could see him
still seated in his car, bending down and making hurried
movements as though hiding something. When the officers reached Khalil,
they noticed a strong smell of cannabis and asked Khalil
to exit the vehicle. As Khalil did so, he told
(15:20):
the officers that his gun was in the car. The
officers founded on the floor under the driver's seat. When
Khalil asked the officers why they had pulled him over
in the first place, one told him that he'd been speeding.
Another pointed to some prayer beads Kurlil had hanging from
his rearview mirror and said they'd stopped him for obstruction
(15:42):
of vision. Canine units were called in, and police also
recovered a plastic bag under the dashboard which contained a
black vial, three sleeping pills, and four baggies of cannabis.
In total, the search took about three hours. Khalil was
(16:03):
arrested for possession of cannabis and for carrying a concealed weapon.
Michigan was an open carry state, meaning residents were permitted
to carry firearms provided they were displayed openly. To conceal carry,
you needed a special license. Khalil did not have this license,
(16:25):
and hiding a gun under his driver's seat counted as concealment.
Khalil waived his Miranda rights and provided a full statement
to the police, stating I tried to hide the gun
under my seat because I panicked. I think my fidgeting
made the police officer nervous because he ordered me out
(16:47):
of the car. That's when I told him, Amen, I
got a pistol. Khalil Ryan spent the night in jail
and was released on bond the following morning. Khalil was
charged with carrying a concealed weapon and a legal possession
(17:07):
of a controlled substance. One month later, at around the
same time, on Sunday, November fifteen, he tried to buy
another gun. He went to a different sporting goods store
and again filled out the ATF form the same way,
but this time his purchase was blocked due to his
(17:28):
pending court case. Later that day, Khalil and a friend
went to a local firing range. The pair rented an
AK forty seven and an AR fifteen rifle, both of
which are military style firearms. Background checks were not required
for this. Khalil took photographs of himself holding the weapons,
(17:53):
and two weeks later he posted one of these pitchers
on Twitter. He captured the photo oh Sawat hunting Sawat
is an is term for a person who opposes their group,
originally referring to the Sunni tribesmen who fought alongside US
Led Coalition troops in Iraq. About one week after Rayan
(18:20):
posted this photo, he received a direct message on Twitter
from a twenty three year old woman called Gadha. She
denoticed his account and was reaching out. Garda told Khalil
she was of Pakistani descent and lived in Cleveland, Ohio.
She shared some photos of herself with Khalil. Some were
(18:44):
selfies she'd taken in front of a mirror, others were
her with her family. Khalil thought she was beautiful. The
pair exchanged phone numbers, and soon they were texting each
other daily. Khalil had never had a girlfriend before. Their
(19:04):
relationship quickly escalated from getting to know one another by
asking questions about their lives to a serious romance where
they were discussing marriage. Khalil told Garda that his religious
faith forbade him from playing games with her. If they
were going to be together, it needed to be a commitment.
(19:27):
Within a week of meeting, they were describing themselves as engaged.
Although he was yet to meet Garda in person, her
presence in Khalil's life had already made an enormous impact.
In one message, he told her, while I was driving,
I started to cry because of how happy I am
(19:49):
to have you. Don't cry my love, please. Garda replied,
it's tears of joy. Khalil reassured her never felt this
way before. The love strucky young couple discussed what their
wedding would be like and how many children they would have.
(20:11):
Eager to progress to the next stage of their relationship,
Khalil said he didn't want them to sneak around behind
their family's backs. Instead, their parents should meet one another.
He spoke about it with his father, who said he
was happy to go to Ohio with Khalil to meet
Garda and plan their wedding. Khalil went back to Garda
(20:35):
to share the news, but wasn't met with the joy
he expected. Instead, Garda said she was having second thoughts
about everything and wasn't sure it was a good idea.
She then stopped responding to Khalil altogether. He was heartbroken
(20:56):
and distraught their relationship had entered as quickly as it began.
Khalil wondered if he'd been too clingy or rushed the situation.
Whatever had gone wrong, he believed that must have been
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quality content. A couple of weeks after Garda disappeared, Khalil
received a direct message from another young woman on Twitter.
(22:39):
Her name was Jeanna brid and she was of Iraqi descent.
At nineteen, she was a few years younger than Garda,
and she also lived closer to Khalil. Like him, she
was a Sunni Muslim residing in Detroit. Jana told Khalil
that she felt an overwhelming urged to talk to him,
(23:01):
and she believed God had connected them. Janna had suffered
a lot recently and was deeply depressed. Like Khalil, She'd
experienced heartbreak. She had been engaged to a young man
named Ahmud, who had died during an air strike in Syria.
(23:22):
Two of Jana's cousins had also been killed by Antiis forces.
Now she was living at home with her parents, whom
she felt were destroying her life. Jana was suicidal and
needed somebody to talk to. Over the course of mid
to late December twenty fifteen, Khalil and Janna began communicating daily.
(23:48):
Khalil developed romantic feelings for Jana quickly, but she was
slower to respond. Janna seemed too absorbed by her own
pain to be interested in at all. Nevertheless, the two
became close and were soon confiding intimate thoughts and feelings
to one another. They found some common ground in their
(24:12):
feelings about Islamic state. Janna was a staunch supporter of
the group, as she blamed their enemies for the deaths
of her fiance and cousins. Khalil began confessing some of
his darker thoughts to Janna. He told her about a
plan he'd had to shoot up a church near his
(24:33):
home with an AK forty seven. He'd chosen it as
a target because lots of people went there and he
knew the parishioners would be unarmed. Khalil told Janna he
would show no mercy, even killing women and children. Honestly,
I regret not doing it. If I can't go do
(24:54):
gihard in the Middle East, I would do my gihard
over here, maybe down the line, and I can try again.
Jihard is an Arabic word that translates to struggling. In
an Islamic context, it can refer to an individual striving
to live a moral life or to put efforts towards
(25:15):
building a good Muslim community. However, in the context of
extremist Islam, it has come to mean an armed struggle
against perceived enemies of the religion. Janna understood where Khalil
was coming from. She told him, Jihard is my dream.
(25:36):
She was suicidal, but only had interest in dying if
she could martyr herself for God and as revenge for
the deaths of Syrians and Iraqis following international invasions. The
following month, Khalil told Jana that hearing about shootings and
murder excited him. I would gladly behead people if I
(25:58):
needed to, he said. It is my dream to behead someone.
He claimed that sometimes Satan spoke to him at night,
telling him to burn people alive and cut their tongues.
Curalil also wanted to murder one of the police officers
who'd arrested him for concealed carry and possession of a
(26:19):
controlled substance a few months earlier. Khalil explained that his
trial had been delayed because the officer in question had
suffered a heart attack and was in hospital. Khalil said
he wanted to commit a quote martyredom operation at the hospital,
killing the officer in the process. Khalil also said he
(26:42):
was now carrying a large knife or sword in his
car in case he ever got into a fight. He
told Janna that his father knew about Khalil's support of ies,
and that he told his father that he wanted to
make g hard. Khalil's father did not support this and
had warned his son to be careful about what he
(27:03):
said and posted online. On Thursday, February four, twenty sixteen,
Khalil received a text message from Janna early in the morning.
She asked whether he was going to work that day.
(27:24):
Khalil replied that he was, then got ready for his shift.
He left home and stopped to get gas before driving
to work. Khalil was opening up the pizzeria that day,
and as he approached the front door, he suddenly saw
a man with an ar style rifle aimed at him.
(27:44):
He ordered Khalil to get on the ground. Soon there
was a swarm of other people surrounding him, all brandishing
firearms and wearing bulletproof vests. They were agents for the
Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI. As they placed Khalil under
arrest and searched the pizzeria, a simultaneous raid was taking
(28:07):
place at his family home. His mother and younger sister
were escorted from the premises, while his younger brother was
handcuffed Khalil Ryan was taken to the FBI headquarters and
placed in an interrogation room. An agent informed him that
he was under arrest for possession of a firearm by
(28:29):
an unlawful user of a controlled substance. Khalil already knew
he had state charges pending for these offenses and wasn't
aware they'd been upgraded to a federal level. He requested
a lawyer several times, but the FBI agent told him
he had some questions to ask. First, what is your
(28:51):
involvement with Islamic State, the agent asked. At that point,
Khalil realized he was under investigation for terrorism. He responded
by asking what he was being charged with. The agent
repeated that it was just a gun case, but followed
up by asking about posts Khlil had shared on social
(29:13):
media and his thoughts about Islamic State. He then brought
up a Jana, implying that she was being questioned simultaneously
in the room next a door. The agent knew about
things the two had discussed, like Khalil's plan to commit
a mass shooting at a church and his desire to
(29:33):
behead people. At that point, Khalil began to worry about
Janna if the FBI had evidence against them, he wanted
to take the rap so she could go free. Despite
the agent's questions, no additional charges were laid against Khalil,
(29:54):
nor was he charged with anything relating to terrorism. But
this time he wasn't being released on bond. He was
to be held in federal custody until his case was resolved.
Almost two weeks later, on Tuesday, February sixteen, Khalil was
(30:14):
charged in a two count indictment. He was being charged
with making a false statement to acquire a firearm for
lying on the ATF form when purchasing his handgun by
stating he wasn't an unlawful user of a controlled substance.
He was also charged with possession of a firearm by
a prohibited person. As Khalil sat in court, his attorney
(30:40):
went through his charge sheet. After reading it, she turned
to Khalil and told him that the woman he knew
was his girlfriend, Jeanna Bride, didn't exist at all. It
turned out that the FBI had been monitoring Khalil Ryan
(31:01):
ever since May twenty fifteen, after his Twitter account came
to their attention. His comments and posts in favor of
iss activities had been flagged, and a review found that
he'd been liking and retweeting ISS propaganda for over six months.
The FBI began investigating Khalil via a number of methods,
(31:24):
including monitoring of his social media accounts and surveillance. A
few months after they first began surveilling Khalil, the FBI
became aware that he'd bought a firearm. They arranged for
local police to pull Khalil over just two days after
the purchase under the guise of a routine traffic stop.
(31:47):
It was then that Khalil was first charged with criminal
offenses for the concealed carry of the gun and possession
of a controlled substance. The FBI has not released the
full fat of their investigation into Khalil, but it is
believed that they first attempted to approach him undercover about
two months after his arrest, using the online persona of Garda.
(32:12):
Garda initiated a whirlwind romance with Khalil via Twitter, and
he had believed that they were engaged to be married,
but then Garda abruptly entered the relationship, leaving Khalil feeling broken.
A few days after Khalil last heard from Garda, either
the same agent or another one, reached out to Khalil
(32:35):
again with a brand new persona. Unlike Garda, Janna Bride's
approach was grounded in a strong focus on Islamic state.
The agent operating as Janna gave her a history steeped
in conflicts taking place in the Middle East, and repeatedly
turned their conversations to the topics of gyard, martyrdom, and
(32:58):
dis During conversations throughout December twenty fifteen and to January
two thousand sixteen, Khalil made a number of statements that
the FBI took as indications he might be planning a
terror attack. These included claims that he'd previously planned to
shoot up a church. Based on information in Khalil's messages,
(33:23):
agents were able to identify a church that fit the
description he gave. It was less than half a mile
from the pizzeria where Khalil worked and stretched across two blocks.
It was a large building with a capacity to fit
six thousand people. In late January twenty sixteen, Khalil also
(33:46):
talked about wanting to go to the hospital where the
officer who arrested him was being cared for, and murdering him.
The next day, he told Janna how he carried a
sword in his car and added, I would gladly behead
people if I needed to. About two weeks after this,
(34:07):
on Thursday, February fourth, FBI agents struck They arrested Khalil
at his workplace and confronted him with what they knew
about his terrorist ambitions. In the days following Khalil Ryan's
second arrest, articles were published about the incident in local
(34:28):
and national newspapers and media outlets. Headlines announced that a
twenty one year old man had been arrested on suspicion
of supporting Islamic State and planning to attack a Detroit church.
Khalil was portrayed as a dangerous budding terrorist who had
been successfully stopped before he'd caused harm. The FBI's criminal
(34:53):
complaint against Khalil was also shared online. The affidavit contained
this notable quote from FBI Special Agent Alan Southard. Since
May of twenty fifteen, the FBI has been conducting an
investigation of Khalil Abu Rayan regarding increasingly violent threats he
(35:15):
has made to others about committing acts of terror and martyrdom,
including brutal acts against police officers, churchgoers and others on
behalf of the foreign terrorist Organization, Islamic State of Iraq
and Levant. Khalil was held on bond and had to
undergo a competency exam to prove he was fit to
(35:37):
stand trial. A grand jury indicted Khalil on the two
gun related felonies. The FBI had initially charged him with
making a false statement to acquire a firearm and possession
of a firearm by a prohibited person. However, the grand
jury did not indict Khalil on any terrorism charge. On Tuesday,
(36:03):
September thirteen, twenty sixteen, Khalil faced court. On the advice
of his attorney. He pleaded guilty to the two federal
firearm chargers. He had already pleaded guilty to the state
chargers relating to the same offenses, and the evidence against
him was clear. Khalil told the court of his deep
(36:25):
remorse for his actions, stating, I am so ashamed. I
have humiliated myself. That conduct is not who I am
or what I believe in Islamic State, has nothing to
do with Islam. I have shamed my faith, I have
shamed the Muslim people sentencing guidelines for these charges typically
(36:49):
called for ten to sixteen months in prison. The judge
spoke for an hour before sentencing Khalil, focusing primarily on
Khalil's support for Islamic state. This is not merely viewing
an Islamic State website, the judge stated, while pointing to
the threats Kurlil had shared with the Jarre. The judge
(37:12):
also cited the photo Khalil had posted of himself to
Twitter holding a military grade rifle and claiming he was
sawhat hunting. Although Khalil had expressed remorse for holding these sentiments,
the judge said his apology was too little, too late.
He sentenced Khalil Rayan to five years in federal prison.
(37:38):
Although the shocking headlines about Khalil's planned terrorist attacks had
scared some members of the public, there were others who
harbored concerns about the case against the young man. Civil
rights advocates and Muslim American leaders believed Khalil's case was
emblematic of a larger abuse of power taking place. What
(38:00):
hadn't been included in the FBI's criminal complaint against Khalil
Rayan was mitigating evidence that indicated he had never had
any intention to commit a terrorist act at all. In fact,
the evidence provided by the government was missing key portions
of the conversations between Khalil and Janna, with nothing at
(38:21):
all provided from before December twenty three, twenty fifteen, well
in to the pair's relationship. The government claimed these omissions
were due to a printing error, but Khalil's defense team
suspected otherwise. They filed a motion for discovery to gain
access to the FBI's full case against Khalil. The government
(38:45):
was able to successfully withhold most of its surveillance evidence
by arguing that doing so would protect national security, but
a closer look at the conversations between Khalil and Janna
that were available still provided greater clarity as to what
had actually taken place. From the start, Jeanna Bride had
(39:08):
presented as a deeply depressed, suicidal young woman who had
suffered I manse loss. While she had repeatedly raised the
subject of Islamic state and jihad, Khalil's responses to her
had been more focused on building a romantic relationship. I
wish I could take you away from this sadness, he wrote.
(39:30):
I pray a lot for your happiness. Sometimes I think
I see you in my dreams. Over time, he started
professing his love to Jana and asked her to marry him.
Lonely and depressed, Khalil had never had a romantic relationship
before and saw marriage as a way to be happy.
(39:52):
He tried to dissuade Janna from harming herself for others,
telling her just stay positive everything will work out. In
one conversation, Jana expressed her deep sadness before asking Khalil,
what do you want from this dunya. Duna is an
(40:13):
Arabic word referring to the temporal world. Khalil replied honestly,
to get married. I think if I get married, I
will be happy. I'm just lonely. Sometimes I want to
start a family. What about the afterlife, Jana asked, before
(40:33):
adding I want to leave this dounya. I don't want
to get married. Khalil encouraged her not to give up,
reassuring her that her life would improve. Don't you want
to have children and watch them grow up? He asked,
that's probably the best feeling. In subsequent conversations, Jana spoke
(40:57):
of wanting to marter herself for Allah or God, stating
I want to die for the sake of Allah. Her
motivation for doing so was vengeance for quote seeing my
sisters and brothers and young women die in Syria and
Iraq like that. Khalil replied that she was young and
(41:19):
confused and didn't know what she wanted. Jihad is my dream,
Janna responded, but Khalil didn't pick up on these threads,
instead trying to convince Janna that marriage and building a
future was the best path forward. During one conversation, Janna
(41:41):
appeared to directly asked Khalil about a possible plan for
them to commit jihad together, writing, so you don't want
to do anything of what we talked about together? No,
I can't, Khalil replied, I want us to be together.
I have other plans. Don't do anything that will hurt
(42:02):
yourself or other people. At one point, he grew so
tired of Jana's repeated talk about Gihard that he stopped
talking to her for three days. She continued to contact
him incessantly during that time, perhaps picking up on his
(42:23):
distaste for conversations about violence. She no longer messaged about that,
but instead said how much she needed someone to talk
to Khalil caved and resumed contact. This time, when Jianna
began fixating on Islamic state and Ghard again, Khalil followed
(42:43):
her lead. He would later explain in an interview with
progressive advocacy group The Gravell Institute that he could see
those were the things that were quote turning her on,
so he decided to go along with it to impress
Janna and maintain her interest. Whenever he turned to other topics,
(43:06):
Jana became distant and started to pull away. Desperate to
keep her attention, Khalil started making up stories, claiming he'd
been accused of murder and had spent three months in
prison before being let go. This had never happened. Khalil
said that his claims of wanting to behead people or
(43:28):
commit a massacre at a church were invented as well,
to make him sound more like the sort of man
Jana would be interested in. When the FBI searched Khalil's
home and workplace, they found no trace of the AK
forty seven he said he'd owned. The truth was that
Khalil had never owned an AK forty seven, nor did
(43:51):
he have any bullets. He had purchased a handgun in
October twenty fifteen, but this was in response to feeling
unsafer work after being robbed multiple times while delivering pizzas,
sometimes at gunpoint, he felt he needed to be armed
for protection. The gun he bought could only carry six
(44:13):
bullets in its chamber. He'd had it for just two
days when he was pulled over and it was confiscated
by the police. Khalil had also told Jana he'd bought
a mask to wear during the church attack, but no
such mask was recovered during searches by the FBI. Khalil's
(44:35):
defenders have described his proposed massacre as fantasy to impress
a girl, but prosecutors argued that even if he hadn't
made preparations to carry it out, his messages were still
an expression of intent. The situation between Ryan and Jana
reached a boiling point in early February twenty sixteen. Rayan
(45:00):
had grown increasingly depressed while awaiting trial for the gun chargers.
He was also anxious because his phone had been searched
following his arrest, and he knew authorities might find the
Islamic State content he had downloaded and watched. There were
also photos of him posing with guns at the firing range.
(45:21):
He worried these might lead to further charges. During a
phone conversation on Tuesday, February two, Rayan told Janna that
he was suicidal and had bought a rope to hang himself.
I'm tired of this, he said. We're doing the same
thing every day. He told Janna of his anxieties that
(45:45):
he might be charged with further offenses. He claimed he'd
tried to travel to Syria a year earlier to join
Islamic State, but had been turned away. Lately, he'd noticed
that he seemed to be under surveillance. There were always
cop cars near his workplace or dark vehicles following him.
(46:07):
One time, Khalil had actually called the police to report
that he'd seen a man in a vehicle taking photos
of him. An officer had attended the scene, spoken to
the man in the vehicle, and then told Khalil that
it was fine. The man had just been taking photos
of some nearby signs. Janna pushed back against Rayan's suicidal ideation,
(46:32):
telling him that taking his own life was haram forbidden
by Islamic law when it's for the sake of valor,
when it's jihad or when it's for a cause. That's
the only time Allah allows it. But not to put
your life to waste and to just hang yourself like
you say you want to do. Janna asked Khalil directly
(46:57):
whether he wanted to hurt anybody else. I would not
like to hurt somebody else, he replied. Towards the end
of their conversation, Khalil said that he couldn't stand the
thought of being incarcerated. If the police tried to take
him into custody again, he planned to try and stab
(47:19):
them to incite them to kill him in response, but
at no time did he discuss planning or intending to
carry out a terrorist attack. Two days after this conversation,
FBI agents arrested Khalil Rayan at his place of work.
(47:48):
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our sponsors, you support case File to continue to deliver
our quality content. To Khalil's defense attorneys, it appeared as
though the FBI had repeatedly tried to manipulate their client
(49:08):
towards committing an active terror. They believed that both female
personas the government had used to communicate with Khalil had
been part of a quote reprehensible drama. First, they manipulated
the young man to fall head over heels in love
with Garda, leaving him broken hearted when she abruptly dumped him.
(49:31):
They then introduced him to Janna, who had just lost
her fiance, as Khalil had lost his. Janna was an
attempt to exploit his devastation and loss by pushing him
towards terrorism instead of just e gauging where Khalil stood
when it came to such crimes, Janna had actively and
(49:54):
repeatedly steered him towards them by promoting gihad. When Khalil
suicidal thoughts and revealed a suicide plan, Janna told him
the only way suicide was acceptable was in the form
of a suicide attack that would also harm others. Near
the conclusion of their motion, Khalil's attorneys wrote, the government
(50:19):
has indiscriminately thrown damaging information about mister Ryan into the
public record, allowing the media to run wild with the
accusations that he is a mentally ill terrorist sympathizer. The
truth is that the government has subjected the defendant, a
US citizen, to a relentless and cynical emotional manipulation in
(50:41):
an attempt to radicalize a lonely young man who was
looking for a wife to start a family. A psychologist
hired by the defense found that Ryan's level of dangerousness
was very low, according to an article in The Intercept.
The psychologist wrote in his report that Ryan's comments and
(51:02):
behavior with the undercover agent was the result of deep
longings for female attention in a very shy and awkward
young man. His verbalization was the result of an effort
to keep the attention with hopes of a future. They
were not the result of radicalization or representative of terrorist intentions.
(51:29):
According to author and to journalist Trevor Aarronson, who published
a book titled The Terror Factory Inside the FBI's Manufactured
War on Terror, the FBI was using more than fifteen
thousand informants in counter terrorism investigations in early twenty sixteen.
At that time, many of their investigations focused on alleged
(51:52):
Islamic State sympathizers. The particular type of surveillance used in
Khalil Ryan's case was known as a honeypot, an operational
practice where a covert agent uses the allure of a
romantic or sexual relationship to compromise a target. An article
in the Detroit Free Press around the time of Khalil's
(52:15):
conviction quoted the head of the FBI in Detroit as
defending these undercover operations, saying they only targeted individuals who
had already expressed intentions to commit criminal behavior. He described
informants as a legitimate tool in combating terrorism. Two other
(52:36):
men in Detroit also faced court in early twenty sixteen
after being targeted by FBI informants for terror related activities,
but like Khalil, they were never charged with any offenses
relating to terrorism. Local Muslim leaders accused the FBI of
pursuing young men who were mentally unstable or suffering from
(52:59):
a motional problems and degading them into terrorism. Other young
Muslims in Michigan said that they had been pressured to
become informants for the FBI. One young man was interrogated
at the airport after returning home from Yemen and said
he'd been told that if he became an informant, he
would be taken off a no fly list. Another man
(53:23):
said he was asked to spy on other Muslims in
exchange for a visa allowing him to work in the US.
In an interview with RT America, author and journalist Trevor
Aarrenson stated, in the vast majority of cases where the
FBI uses informants and sting operations and files terrorism related charges,
(53:48):
they're not finding people who have weapons and bombs and
direct connections to terrorist organizations. Instead, more than anything, they're
finding people who were mentally ill. What's particularly problematic about
these cases is they're not finding the truly dangerous person
who would strike tomorrow. Instead, they're finding someone who is
(54:12):
easily manipulated via an informant. There are also arguments that
building cases against radicalized individuals via undercover agents isn't an
effective way to prevent terrorism. In many instances, this approach
pushes people towards criminal activity instead of away from it.
(54:34):
In Denmark, a program was introduced that focused on deradicalizing
citizens who had chosen to support Islamic State. Creators of
the program recognized that young people drawn to ys were
typically second generation immigrants who felt isolated and abandoned by
their communities. They designed a collaborative approach between police, Danish intelligence,
(55:00):
social services, the healthcare system, and education providers that would
see radicalized citizens receive counseling, mentoring, and support as long
as they hadn't committed any crimes. Named the or House Model,
it appeared to have some success. While thirty Danish citizens
(55:20):
traveled to Syria to join Islamic State in twenty thirteen,
that number dropped to one a year later and two
in twenty fifteen. One young man who took part in
the ore House Model spoke with the BBC about his
experience going by the name of Ahmed. He explained that
(55:41):
after he came to police attention for extremist leanings, they
approached him at home and took him out for a coffee.
They then introduced him to a mentor, another Muslim Man,
who worked with Hmed for months to deradicalize him and
to show him he had other options. The program ultimately worked,
(56:01):
with Ahmad telling the BBC, I'm happy right now. I
see my future in Denmark. I couldn't see that before
because it was all dark. Khalil Rayan spent almost four
years incarcerated at a federal prison in Indiana. For the
(56:23):
first six months, he was held in solitary confinement for
his own protection. Prison officials felt that the high profile
nature of Khalil's case and the allegations of terrorism could
lead to other inmates harming Khalil. In an interview with
the Gravel Institute, Khalil stated that his time in solitary
(56:43):
confinement permanently altered him. He felt forgotten by his family
and hopeless about his future. Quote, I really do firmly
believe that a part of me actually did break when
I was in there. Eventually, Khalil joined the General population.
(57:04):
He developed a routine that involved lots of reading, praying,
and working in the prison commissary. Khalil Rayan was released
from custody in June twenty twenty. He returned to his
family in Dearborn Heights and also rejoined social media. He
soon found a niche on the platform TikTok, where he
(57:25):
posted videos answering questions about what life was like in prison.
Khalil also began a serious relationship with his first real girlfriend,
though he struggled with trust issues for a long time.
He couldn't shake the fear that his girlfriend might actually
be an undercover informant. Khalil Ryan has shared his story
(57:48):
in a number of interviews. He is adamant that the
FBI knew exactly where his life was lacking and how
vulnerable he would be to a honeypot approach. Has also
been at pains to make clear how little of a
threat he was to the American people, as he never
had any plans to launch an attack. Khalil has pointed
(58:10):
to the grand jury's dismissal of any terrorism charges against
him as proof of this quote. My lawyer, he gave
me this quote that a grand jury indicts a Hamn Sandwich,
meaning whatever charges you put on a grand jury, the
grand jury's going to indict you on, and for them
(58:31):
to return back with no indictment on terrorism really just
goes to show that the prosecution didn't have proof beyond
reasonable doubt that there was some kind of crime committed there.
In twenty twenty four, Khalil spoke with Rolling Stone about
issues facing the young Muslim population of Dearborn Heights in
(58:52):
the present day. He said that he still lives in
fear that he might one day be stopped or raided
again by the FBI, adding that kind of stuff doesn't
go away.
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I'm contractually obligated to record an advertisement for my own podcast,
The blind By Podcast. I'm a writer and I like
to use the podcast space for writing. I write with
my mouth for you to read with your ears. I
write about curiosity, and I've delivered an episode every week
(00:39):
for the past eight years. I love doing it. If
you want to listen to If you don't, I'm sure
we'll be grand, but most importantly, mind yourself. The blind
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Our episodes deal with serious and often distressing incidents. If
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(01:39):
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an early bonus for our paid subscribers. To receive these
episodes early and dad free, you can support case file
on your preferred platform. One day in December twenty fifteen,
(02:03):
a twenty one year old man from Michigan admitted something
very disturbing to his girlfriend. Khalil Ryan had met nineteen
year old Janna Bright just a couple of months earlier
via the social media platform Twitter. The two had bonded
over shared interests and commonalities. Both were from strict Muslim
(02:25):
families and lived in the city of Detroit. As they
were unable to date openly the way other young people
in the United States typically would, their relationship had moved
quickly and they were already discussing marriage as a way
to be together. Khalil and Janna would often talk about
heavy topics, including violent crimes committed by the terrorist group
(02:49):
Islamic State. During one such conversation in December twenty fifteen,
Khlil made an alarming confession. He told Janna quote, I
tried to shoot up a church one day. I don't
know the name of it, but it's close to my job.
It's one of the biggest ones in Detroit. Yeah, I
(03:12):
had it planned out. I bought a bunch of bullets.
I practiced a lot with it. I practiced reloading and unloading.
But my dad searched my car one day and he
found everything. He found the gun and the bullets and
a mask I was going to wear. Khalil said he'd
(03:34):
decided to attack a church because it was an easy target.
Lots of people would be in attendance and would be unarmed,
Plus it would make the news. He added he had
an AK forty seven rifle, so he would be capable
of shooting many victims. When Janna asked Khalil if he
(03:56):
would have shot women and children at the church as
well as men, he responded, I would have killed every
last one of them. I would have shown no mercy.
(04:31):
Khalil Rayan was raised in the Detroit suburb of Dearborn Heights,
which had a large Arab American population. Many women in
the area wore he japs, a head covering wrapped over
the hair and beneath the chin. Some men wore long,
loose fitting robes known as a thobe, and the Calder
(04:51):
prayer could be heard echoing through parts of the suburb
five times a day. Khalil was the son of Palla
Yxtinian immigrants, though his parents split up when he was three,
He was then primarily raised by his father's family, and
he received plenty of love and care while at home.
(05:12):
He had six younger siblings and step siblings. But despite
growing up in an Arab American family and neighborhood, Khalil
felt torn between two worlds. He also wanted to be
an ordinary American kid, so he sometimes went by the
nicknames Kay or Ray to sound less foreign. In September
(05:36):
two thousand one, when Khalil was seven years old, the
nine eleven attacks changed everything. They were committed by nineteen terrorists,
all of whom were extremist Muslims affiliated with the jihadest
group Al Qaeda, an armed militant organization dedicated to establishing
fundamentalist Islamic states. Suddenly, some people in Khalil's community began
(06:02):
looking at him differently. He was bullied at school for
his heritage and began lying about his background, telling people
he was Hispanic or Italian. Although he lived in a
strong Arab American community in a broader sense, Khalil felt
like an outsider. As he grew older, he became more troubled.
(06:27):
At the age of twelve, he had a dream that
he took a gun to school and shot his entire class.
He later told a teacher about the nightmare, and he
was referred to counseling. As a teenager, Khalil developed a
reputation for being a class clown at the Charter High
school he attended, where the other students were also of
(06:49):
mostly Muslim and Arab descent, but he also became the
target of bullies and was given suspension on at least
three separate occasions after getting into fights. While his home
life was stable, Khalil struggled with his peers and with depression.
(07:10):
By the age of seventeen, he'd started using cannabis. It
was after graduating, however, that Khalil's problems escalated. He briefly
attended college, but his poor mental health and drug use
led to him failing his classes. He decided to essentially
drop out and take a break from studying to work
(07:32):
full time as a pizza delivery driver. Khalil's father was
an engineer with two master's degrees, and he also owned
a pizzarea. Working for his father at the pizzeria seemed
like a good solution. However, without the structure of school
and the friends he'd previously seen daily, Khalil's depression worsened.
(07:57):
His job was isolating, involving long hours alone in a car,
sometimes up to seventy hours a week. Khalil became even
more dependent on drugs, often smoking between deliveries to curb
his boredom and a low mood. By the age of nineteen,
he was often smoking between ten and fifteen cannabis joints
(08:20):
a day. To make matters worse, Khalil often felt unsafe
while working. Detroit could be a dangerous city, and Khalil
was generally working late at night. He had to deliver
pizza at sketchy looking apartment buildings or on blocks with
no porch lights to aid visibility. On more than one occasion,
(08:44):
Khalil would pull up at an address to deliver a
peter only to find it was an abandoned house and
there were people waiting there to jump and rob him.
Sometimes Khalil was even robbed at gunpoint. Feeling lonely, angry,
and powerless, Khalil suffered something of an identity crisis, wondering
(09:09):
who he was and where he belonged. He began spending
his free time retreating online to seek out a sense
of belonging with other young Muslims his age. Then he
started seeking out shocking and graphic content as a distraction
from his own feelings. Seeing real gore and violence just
(09:30):
felt like an escalation from watching an action movie. It
involved the same shock and awe on a heightened level.
By this time, it was twenty fourteen and the actions
of the terrorist group Islamic State or IS had captured
the world's attention. Militants from MIS had taken over large
(09:54):
territories in eastern Syria, where there was an ongoing civil war,
and a northwestern Ira where local military forces were dwindling.
ISS declared itself to bear a caliphate, the term for
a state under the leadership of a religious Muslim considered
a successor to the Islamic prophet Muhammad is adheres to
(10:18):
a radical pro Sunni Islamist ideology and seeks to establish
a global colorphate through armed struggle. It was designated as
a terrorist organization by the United States government in April
twenty fourteen, as they conquered parts of Syria and Iraq.
(10:38):
Is became known for their use of social media to
disseminate their message. They posted news, photos and videos on
Twitter as a way to reach a broader audience beyond
their geographical borders and radicalize sympathetic individuals abroad. Iss also
became known for their brutality. Much of the content they
(11:02):
shared featured shocking acts of violence against those they deemed
their enemies. One such video was of a Jordanium pilot
they had captured being set on fire and burned to death.
Others showed men who were suspected by Is of being
gay being thrown off a high rise building as a
(11:24):
form of execution. Is also used public beheadings to terrorize
and punish, and filmed soldiers, journalists, aid workers and others
being killed this way. In one incident, a French citizen
and mountaineering guide named Erve Gordel was kidnapped in Algeria,
(11:46):
then held hostage before being beheaded. This crime was filmed
and released online under the title a Message of Blood
for French Government. Khalil Rayan had a Twitter account using
the handle at Khalil ray twenty one. In November twenty fourteen,
(12:10):
he started seeking out iss content. He liked propaganda posts
about their victories, including videos of beheadings and the Jordanian
pilot's murder. Sometimes he would retweet posts, resharing them on
his own profile, or reply with a comment. In one instance,
(12:31):
he asked another Twitter user if they had a link
to a video showing people being thrown from a tall building.
When the other user shared it with him, Khalil replied, thanks,
that made my day. Khalil sent some photos of beheadings
to his brother. He saved one such photo as the
(12:54):
screensaver on his smartphone. Emboldened by the online ward he
was falling into, Khalil took a photograph of himself and
two friends, all dressed in camouflage. Khalil was holding a
semi automatic pistol in his right hand. His left hand
was pointing skyward his index finger raised. This gesture was
(13:19):
a commonly acknowledged sign of support for Islamic state known
as the torheed, a term referring to the oneness of God.
Neither of Khalil's friends were making the gesture. On Thursday
February nineteen, twenty fifteen, Khalil shared this photograph on his
Twitter account. Throughout twenty fifteen, Khalil continued to immerse himself
(13:48):
in ias content. After clocking off from work late in
the year, he decided to buy a gun. On Monday,
October five, Khalil into a Dearborn Heights sporting goods store
and purchased a twenty two caliber revolver. To complete the purchase,
he had to fill out a form required by the
(14:10):
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, commonly known as the ATF.
Question eleven E on the form asked, are you an
unlawful user of or addicted to marijuana or any depressant, stimulant,
narcotic drug, or any other controlled substance. Khalil checked no
(14:33):
and signed the form. Two days later, Khalil left work
and got into his two thousand and one Buick Century.
As he was driving away from the pizzeria, he noticed
two police cars with their lights on, signaling him to
pull over. Khalil did so at a nearby intersection. The
(14:56):
officers approached him on foot with their weapons drawn, later
savedying that as they did so, they could see him
still seated in his car, bending down and making hurried
movements as though hiding something. When the officers reached Khalil,
they noticed a strong smell of cannabis and asked Khalil
to exit the vehicle. As Khalil did so, he told
(15:20):
the officers that his gun was in the car. The
officers founded on the floor under the driver's seat. When
Khalil asked the officers why they had pulled him over
in the first place, one told him that he'd been speeding.
Another pointed to some prayer beads Kurlil had hanging from
his rearview mirror and said they'd stopped him for obstruction
(15:42):
of vision. Canine units were called in, and police also
recovered a plastic bag under the dashboard which contained a
black vial, three sleeping pills, and four baggies of cannabis.
In total, the search took about three hours. Khalil was
(16:03):
arrested for possession of cannabis and for carrying a concealed weapon.
Michigan was an open carry state, meaning residents were permitted
to carry firearms provided they were displayed openly. To conceal carry,
you needed a special license. Khalil did not have this license,
(16:25):
and hiding a gun under his driver's seat counted as concealment.
Khalil waived his Miranda rights and provided a full statement
to the police, stating I tried to hide the gun
under my seat because I panicked. I think my fidgeting
made the police officer nervous because he ordered me out
(16:47):
of the car. That's when I told him, Amen, I
got a pistol. Khalil Ryan spent the night in jail
and was released on bond the following morning. Khalil was
charged with carrying a concealed weapon and a legal possession
(17:07):
of a controlled substance. One month later, at around the
same time, on Sunday, November fifteen, he tried to buy
another gun. He went to a different sporting goods store
and again filled out the ATF form the same way,
but this time his purchase was blocked due to his
(17:28):
pending court case. Later that day, Khalil and a friend
went to a local firing range. The pair rented an
AK forty seven and an AR fifteen rifle, both of
which are military style firearms. Background checks were not required
for this. Khalil took photographs of himself holding the weapons,
(17:53):
and two weeks later he posted one of these pitchers
on Twitter. He captured the photo oh Sawat hunting Sawat
is an is term for a person who opposes their group,
originally referring to the Sunni tribesmen who fought alongside US
Led Coalition troops in Iraq. About one week after Rayan
(18:20):
posted this photo, he received a direct message on Twitter
from a twenty three year old woman called Gadha. She
denoticed his account and was reaching out. Garda told Khalil
she was of Pakistani descent and lived in Cleveland, Ohio.
She shared some photos of herself with Khalil. Some were
(18:44):
selfies she'd taken in front of a mirror, others were
her with her family. Khalil thought she was beautiful. The
pair exchanged phone numbers, and soon they were texting each
other daily. Khalil had never had a girlfriend before. Their
(19:04):
relationship quickly escalated from getting to know one another by
asking questions about their lives to a serious romance where
they were discussing marriage. Khalil told Garda that his religious
faith forbade him from playing games with her. If they
were going to be together, it needed to be a commitment.
(19:27):
Within a week of meeting, they were describing themselves as engaged.
Although he was yet to meet Garda in person, her
presence in Khalil's life had already made an enormous impact.
In one message, he told her, while I was driving,
I started to cry because of how happy I am
(19:49):
to have you. Don't cry my love, please. Garda replied,
it's tears of joy. Khalil reassured her never felt this
way before. The love strucky young couple discussed what their
wedding would be like and how many children they would have.
(20:11):
Eager to progress to the next stage of their relationship,
Khalil said he didn't want them to sneak around behind
their family's backs. Instead, their parents should meet one another.
He spoke about it with his father, who said he
was happy to go to Ohio with Khalil to meet
Garda and plan their wedding. Khalil went back to Garda
(20:35):
to share the news, but wasn't met with the joy
he expected. Instead, Garda said she was having second thoughts
about everything and wasn't sure it was a good idea.
She then stopped responding to Khalil altogether. He was heartbroken
(20:56):
and distraught their relationship had entered as quickly as it began.
Khalil wondered if he'd been too clingy or rushed the situation.
Whatever had gone wrong, he believed that must have been
his fault. Case File will be back shortly. Thank you
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our sponsors, you support case File to continue to deliver
quality content. A couple of weeks after Garda disappeared, Khalil
received a direct message from another young woman on Twitter.
(22:39):
Her name was Jeanna brid and she was of Iraqi descent.
At nineteen, she was a few years younger than Garda,
and she also lived closer to Khalil. Like him, she
was a Sunni Muslim residing in Detroit. Jana told Khalil
that she felt an overwhelming urged to talk to him,
(23:01):
and she believed God had connected them. Janna had suffered
a lot recently and was deeply depressed. Like Khalil, She'd
experienced heartbreak. She had been engaged to a young man
named Ahmud, who had died during an air strike in Syria.
(23:22):
Two of Jana's cousins had also been killed by Antiis forces.
Now she was living at home with her parents, whom
she felt were destroying her life. Jana was suicidal and
needed somebody to talk to. Over the course of mid
to late December twenty fifteen, Khalil and Janna began communicating daily.
(23:48):
Khalil developed romantic feelings for Jana quickly, but she was
slower to respond. Janna seemed too absorbed by her own
pain to be interested in at all. Nevertheless, the two
became close and were soon confiding intimate thoughts and feelings
to one another. They found some common ground in their
(24:12):
feelings about Islamic state. Janna was a staunch supporter of
the group, as she blamed their enemies for the deaths
of her fiance and cousins. Khalil began confessing some of
his darker thoughts to Janna. He told her about a
plan he'd had to shoot up a church near his
(24:33):
home with an AK forty seven. He'd chosen it as
a target because lots of people went there and he
knew the parishioners would be unarmed. Khalil told Janna he
would show no mercy, even killing women and children. Honestly,
I regret not doing it. If I can't go do
(24:54):
gihard in the Middle East, I would do my gihard
over here, maybe down the line, and I can try again.
Jihard is an Arabic word that translates to struggling. In
an Islamic context, it can refer to an individual striving
to live a moral life or to put efforts towards
(25:15):
building a good Muslim community. However, in the context of
extremist Islam, it has come to mean an armed struggle
against perceived enemies of the religion. Janna understood where Khalil
was coming from. She told him, Jihard is my dream.
(25:36):
She was suicidal, but only had interest in dying if
she could martyr herself for God and as revenge for
the deaths of Syrians and Iraqis following international invasions. The
following month, Khalil told Jana that hearing about shootings and
murder excited him. I would gladly behead people if I
(25:58):
needed to, he said. It is my dream to behead someone.
He claimed that sometimes Satan spoke to him at night,
telling him to burn people alive and cut their tongues.
Curalil also wanted to murder one of the police officers
who'd arrested him for concealed carry and possession of a
(26:19):
controlled substance a few months earlier. Khalil explained that his
trial had been delayed because the officer in question had
suffered a heart attack and was in hospital. Khalil said
he wanted to commit a quote martyredom operation at the hospital,
killing the officer in the process. Khalil also said he
(26:42):
was now carrying a large knife or sword in his
car in case he ever got into a fight. He
told Janna that his father knew about Khalil's support of ies,
and that he told his father that he wanted to
make g hard. Khalil's father did not support this and
had warned his son to be careful about what he
(27:03):
said and posted online. On Thursday, February four, twenty sixteen,
Khalil received a text message from Janna early in the morning.
She asked whether he was going to work that day.
(27:24):
Khalil replied that he was, then got ready for his shift.
He left home and stopped to get gas before driving
to work. Khalil was opening up the pizzeria that day,
and as he approached the front door, he suddenly saw
a man with an ar style rifle aimed at him.
(27:44):
He ordered Khalil to get on the ground. Soon there
was a swarm of other people surrounding him, all brandishing
firearms and wearing bulletproof vests. They were agents for the
Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI. As they placed Khalil under
arrest and searched the pizzeria, a simultaneous raid was taking
(28:07):
place at his family home. His mother and younger sister
were escorted from the premises, while his younger brother was
handcuffed Khalil Ryan was taken to the FBI headquarters and
placed in an interrogation room. An agent informed him that
he was under arrest for possession of a firearm by
(28:29):
an unlawful user of a controlled substance. Khalil already knew
he had state charges pending for these offenses and wasn't
aware they'd been upgraded to a federal level. He requested
a lawyer several times, but the FBI agent told him
he had some questions to ask. First, what is your
(28:51):
involvement with Islamic State, the agent asked. At that point,
Khalil realized he was under investigation for terrorism. He responded
by asking what he was being charged with. The agent
repeated that it was just a gun case, but followed
up by asking about posts Khlil had shared on social
(29:13):
media and his thoughts about Islamic State. He then brought
up a Jana, implying that she was being questioned simultaneously
in the room next a door. The agent knew about
things the two had discussed, like Khalil's plan to commit
a mass shooting at a church and his desire to
(29:33):
behead people. At that point, Khalil began to worry about
Janna if the FBI had evidence against them, he wanted
to take the rap so she could go free. Despite
the agent's questions, no additional charges were laid against Khalil,
(29:54):
nor was he charged with anything relating to terrorism. But
this time he wasn't being released on bond. He was
to be held in federal custody until his case was resolved.
Almost two weeks later, on Tuesday, February sixteen, Khalil was
(30:14):
charged in a two count indictment. He was being charged
with making a false statement to acquire a firearm for
lying on the ATF form when purchasing his handgun by
stating he wasn't an unlawful user of a controlled substance.
He was also charged with possession of a firearm by
a prohibited person. As Khalil sat in court, his attorney
(30:40):
went through his charge sheet. After reading it, she turned
to Khalil and told him that the woman he knew
was his girlfriend, Jeanna Bride, didn't exist at all. It
turned out that the FBI had been monitoring Khalil Ryan
(31:01):
ever since May twenty fifteen, after his Twitter account came
to their attention. His comments and posts in favor of
iss activities had been flagged, and a review found that
he'd been liking and retweeting ISS propaganda for over six months.
The FBI began investigating Khalil via a number of methods,
(31:24):
including monitoring of his social media accounts and surveillance. A
few months after they first began surveilling Khalil, the FBI
became aware that he'd bought a firearm. They arranged for
local police to pull Khalil over just two days after
the purchase under the guise of a routine traffic stop.
(31:47):
It was then that Khalil was first charged with criminal
offenses for the concealed carry of the gun and possession
of a controlled substance. The FBI has not released the
full fat of their investigation into Khalil, but it is
believed that they first attempted to approach him undercover about
two months after his arrest, using the online persona of Garda.
(32:12):
Garda initiated a whirlwind romance with Khalil via Twitter, and
he had believed that they were engaged to be married,
but then Garda abruptly entered the relationship, leaving Khalil feeling broken.
A few days after Khalil last heard from Garda, either
the same agent or another one, reached out to Khalil
(32:35):
again with a brand new persona. Unlike Garda, Janna Bride's
approach was grounded in a strong focus on Islamic state.
The agent operating as Janna gave her a history steeped
in conflicts taking place in the Middle East, and repeatedly
turned their conversations to the topics of gyard, martyrdom, and
(32:58):
dis During conversations throughout December twenty fifteen and to January
two thousand sixteen, Khalil made a number of statements that
the FBI took as indications he might be planning a
terror attack. These included claims that he'd previously planned to
shoot up a church. Based on information in Khalil's messages,
(33:23):
agents were able to identify a church that fit the
description he gave. It was less than half a mile
from the pizzeria where Khalil worked and stretched across two blocks.
It was a large building with a capacity to fit
six thousand people. In late January twenty sixteen, Khalil also
(33:46):
talked about wanting to go to the hospital where the
officer who arrested him was being cared for, and murdering him.
The next day, he told Janna how he carried a
sword in his car and added, I would gladly behead
people if I needed to. About two weeks after this,
(34:07):
on Thursday, February fourth, FBI agents struck They arrested Khalil
at his workplace and confronted him with what they knew
about his terrorist ambitions. In the days following Khalil Ryan's
second arrest, articles were published about the incident in local
(34:28):
and national newspapers and media outlets. Headlines announced that a
twenty one year old man had been arrested on suspicion
of supporting Islamic State and planning to attack a Detroit church.
Khalil was portrayed as a dangerous budding terrorist who had
been successfully stopped before he'd caused harm. The FBI's criminal
(34:53):
complaint against Khalil was also shared online. The affidavit contained
this notable quote from FBI Special Agent Alan Southard. Since
May of twenty fifteen, the FBI has been conducting an
investigation of Khalil Abu Rayan regarding increasingly violent threats he
(35:15):
has made to others about committing acts of terror and martyrdom,
including brutal acts against police officers, churchgoers and others on
behalf of the foreign terrorist Organization, Islamic State of Iraq
and Levant. Khalil was held on bond and had to
undergo a competency exam to prove he was fit to
(35:37):
stand trial. A grand jury indicted Khalil on the two
gun related felonies. The FBI had initially charged him with
making a false statement to acquire a firearm and possession
of a firearm by a prohibited person. However, the grand
jury did not indict Khalil on any terrorism charge. On Tuesday,
(36:03):
September thirteen, twenty sixteen, Khalil faced court. On the advice
of his attorney. He pleaded guilty to the two federal
firearm chargers. He had already pleaded guilty to the state
chargers relating to the same offenses, and the evidence against
him was clear. Khalil told the court of his deep
(36:25):
remorse for his actions, stating, I am so ashamed. I
have humiliated myself. That conduct is not who I am
or what I believe in Islamic State, has nothing to
do with Islam. I have shamed my faith, I have
shamed the Muslim people sentencing guidelines for these charges typically
(36:49):
called for ten to sixteen months in prison. The judge
spoke for an hour before sentencing Khalil, focusing primarily on
Khalil's support for Islamic state. This is not merely viewing
an Islamic State website, the judge stated, while pointing to
the threats Kurlil had shared with the Jarre. The judge
(37:12):
also cited the photo Khalil had posted of himself to
Twitter holding a military grade rifle and claiming he was
sawhat hunting. Although Khalil had expressed remorse for holding these sentiments,
the judge said his apology was too little, too late.
He sentenced Khalil Rayan to five years in federal prison.
(37:38):
Although the shocking headlines about Khalil's planned terrorist attacks had
scared some members of the public, there were others who
harbored concerns about the case against the young man. Civil
rights advocates and Muslim American leaders believed Khalil's case was
emblematic of a larger abuse of power taking place. What
(38:00):
hadn't been included in the FBI's criminal complaint against Khalil
Rayan was mitigating evidence that indicated he had never had
any intention to commit a terrorist act at all. In fact,
the evidence provided by the government was missing key portions
of the conversations between Khalil and Janna, with nothing at
(38:21):
all provided from before December twenty three, twenty fifteen, well
in to the pair's relationship. The government claimed these omissions
were due to a printing error, but Khalil's defense team
suspected otherwise. They filed a motion for discovery to gain
access to the FBI's full case against Khalil. The government
(38:45):
was able to successfully withhold most of its surveillance evidence
by arguing that doing so would protect national security, but
a closer look at the conversations between Khalil and Janna
that were available still provided greater clarity as to what
had actually taken place. From the start, Jeanna Bride had
(39:08):
presented as a deeply depressed, suicidal young woman who had
suffered I manse loss. While she had repeatedly raised the
subject of Islamic state and jihad, Khalil's responses to her
had been more focused on building a romantic relationship. I
wish I could take you away from this sadness, he wrote.
(39:30):
I pray a lot for your happiness. Sometimes I think
I see you in my dreams. Over time, he started
professing his love to Jana and asked her to marry him.
Lonely and depressed, Khalil had never had a romantic relationship
before and saw marriage as a way to be happy.
(39:52):
He tried to dissuade Janna from harming herself for others,
telling her just stay positive everything will work out. In
one conversation, Jana expressed her deep sadness before asking Khalil,
what do you want from this dunya. Duna is an
(40:13):
Arabic word referring to the temporal world. Khalil replied honestly,
to get married. I think if I get married, I
will be happy. I'm just lonely. Sometimes I want to
start a family. What about the afterlife, Jana asked, before
(40:33):
adding I want to leave this dounya. I don't want
to get married. Khalil encouraged her not to give up,
reassuring her that her life would improve. Don't you want
to have children and watch them grow up? He asked,
that's probably the best feeling. In subsequent conversations, Jana spoke
(40:57):
of wanting to marter herself for Allah or God, stating
I want to die for the sake of Allah. Her
motivation for doing so was vengeance for quote seeing my
sisters and brothers and young women die in Syria and
Iraq like that. Khalil replied that she was young and
(41:19):
confused and didn't know what she wanted. Jihad is my dream,
Janna responded, but Khalil didn't pick up on these threads,
instead trying to convince Janna that marriage and building a
future was the best path forward. During one conversation, Janna
(41:41):
appeared to directly asked Khalil about a possible plan for
them to commit jihad together, writing, so you don't want
to do anything of what we talked about together? No,
I can't, Khalil replied, I want us to be together.
I have other plans. Don't do anything that will hurt
(42:02):
yourself or other people. At one point, he grew so
tired of Jana's repeated talk about Gihard that he stopped
talking to her for three days. She continued to contact
him incessantly during that time, perhaps picking up on his
(42:23):
distaste for conversations about violence. She no longer messaged about that,
but instead said how much she needed someone to talk
to Khalil caved and resumed contact. This time, when Jianna
began fixating on Islamic state and Ghard again, Khalil followed
(42:43):
her lead. He would later explain in an interview with
progressive advocacy group The Gravell Institute that he could see
those were the things that were quote turning her on,
so he decided to go along with it to impress
Janna and maintain her interest. Whenever he turned to other topics,
(43:06):
Jana became distant and started to pull away. Desperate to
keep her attention, Khalil started making up stories, claiming he'd
been accused of murder and had spent three months in
prison before being let go. This had never happened. Khalil
said that his claims of wanting to behead people or
(43:28):
commit a massacre at a church were invented as well,
to make him sound more like the sort of man
Jana would be interested in. When the FBI searched Khalil's
home and workplace, they found no trace of the AK
forty seven he said he'd owned. The truth was that
Khalil had never owned an AK forty seven, nor did
(43:51):
he have any bullets. He had purchased a handgun in
October twenty fifteen, but this was in response to feeling
unsafer work after being robbed multiple times while delivering pizzas,
sometimes at gunpoint, he felt he needed to be armed
for protection. The gun he bought could only carry six
(44:13):
bullets in its chamber. He'd had it for just two
days when he was pulled over and it was confiscated
by the police. Khalil had also told Jana he'd bought
a mask to wear during the church attack, but no
such mask was recovered during searches by the FBI. Khalil's
(44:35):
defenders have described his proposed massacre as fantasy to impress
a girl, but prosecutors argued that even if he hadn't
made preparations to carry it out, his messages were still
an expression of intent. The situation between Ryan and Jana
reached a boiling point in early February twenty sixteen. Rayan
(45:00):
had grown increasingly depressed while awaiting trial for the gun chargers.
He was also anxious because his phone had been searched
following his arrest, and he knew authorities might find the
Islamic State content he had downloaded and watched. There were
also photos of him posing with guns at the firing range.
(45:21):
He worried these might lead to further charges. During a
phone conversation on Tuesday, February two, Rayan told Janna that
he was suicidal and had bought a rope to hang himself.
I'm tired of this, he said. We're doing the same
thing every day. He told Janna of his anxieties that
(45:45):
he might be charged with further offenses. He claimed he'd
tried to travel to Syria a year earlier to join
Islamic State, but had been turned away. Lately, he'd noticed
that he seemed to be under surveillance. There were always
cop cars near his workplace or dark vehicles following him.
(46:07):
One time, Khalil had actually called the police to report
that he'd seen a man in a vehicle taking photos
of him. An officer had attended the scene, spoken to
the man in the vehicle, and then told Khalil that
it was fine. The man had just been taking photos
of some nearby signs. Janna pushed back against Rayan's suicidal ideation,
(46:32):
telling him that taking his own life was haram forbidden
by Islamic law when it's for the sake of valor,
when it's jihad or when it's for a cause. That's
the only time Allah allows it. But not to put
your life to waste and to just hang yourself like
you say you want to do. Janna asked Khalil directly
(46:57):
whether he wanted to hurt anybody else. I would not
like to hurt somebody else, he replied. Towards the end
of their conversation, Khalil said that he couldn't stand the
thought of being incarcerated. If the police tried to take
him into custody again, he planned to try and stab
(47:19):
them to incite them to kill him in response, but
at no time did he discuss planning or intending to
carry out a terrorist attack. Two days after this conversation,
FBI agents arrested Khalil Rayan at his place of work.
(47:48):
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our sponsors, you support case File to continue to deliver
our quality content. To Khalil's defense attorneys, it appeared as
though the FBI had repeatedly tried to manipulate their client
(49:08):
towards committing an active terror. They believed that both female
personas the government had used to communicate with Khalil had
been part of a quote reprehensible drama. First, they manipulated
the young man to fall head over heels in love
with Garda, leaving him broken hearted when she abruptly dumped him.
(49:31):
They then introduced him to Janna, who had just lost
her fiance, as Khalil had lost his. Janna was an
attempt to exploit his devastation and loss by pushing him
towards terrorism instead of just e gauging where Khalil stood
when it came to such crimes, Janna had actively and
(49:54):
repeatedly steered him towards them by promoting gihad. When Khalil
suicidal thoughts and revealed a suicide plan, Janna told him
the only way suicide was acceptable was in the form
of a suicide attack that would also harm others. Near
the conclusion of their motion, Khalil's attorneys wrote, the government
(50:19):
has indiscriminately thrown damaging information about mister Ryan into the
public record, allowing the media to run wild with the
accusations that he is a mentally ill terrorist sympathizer. The
truth is that the government has subjected the defendant, a
US citizen, to a relentless and cynical emotional manipulation in
(50:41):
an attempt to radicalize a lonely young man who was
looking for a wife to start a family. A psychologist
hired by the defense found that Ryan's level of dangerousness
was very low, according to an article in The Intercept.
The psychologist wrote in his report that Ryan's comments and
(51:02):
behavior with the undercover agent was the result of deep
longings for female attention in a very shy and awkward
young man. His verbalization was the result of an effort
to keep the attention with hopes of a future. They
were not the result of radicalization or representative of terrorist intentions.
(51:29):
According to author and to journalist Trevor Aarronson, who published
a book titled The Terror Factory Inside the FBI's Manufactured
War on Terror, the FBI was using more than fifteen
thousand informants in counter terrorism investigations in early twenty sixteen.
At that time, many of their investigations focused on alleged
(51:52):
Islamic State sympathizers. The particular type of surveillance used in
Khalil Ryan's case was known as a honeypot, an operational
practice where a covert agent uses the allure of a
romantic or sexual relationship to compromise a target. An article
in the Detroit Free Press around the time of Khalil's
(52:15):
conviction quoted the head of the FBI in Detroit as
defending these undercover operations, saying they only targeted individuals who
had already expressed intentions to commit criminal behavior. He described
informants as a legitimate tool in combating terrorism. Two other
(52:36):
men in Detroit also faced court in early twenty sixteen
after being targeted by FBI informants for terror related activities,
but like Khalil, they were never charged with any offenses
relating to terrorism. Local Muslim leaders accused the FBI of
pursuing young men who were mentally unstable or suffering from
(52:59):
a motional problems and degading them into terrorism. Other young
Muslims in Michigan said that they had been pressured to
become informants for the FBI. One young man was interrogated
at the airport after returning home from Yemen and said
he'd been told that if he became an informant, he
would be taken off a no fly list. Another man
(53:23):
said he was asked to spy on other Muslims in
exchange for a visa allowing him to work in the US.
In an interview with RT America, author and journalist Trevor
Aarrenson stated, in the vast majority of cases where the
FBI uses informants and sting operations and files terrorism related charges,
(53:48):
they're not finding people who have weapons and bombs and
direct connections to terrorist organizations. Instead, more than anything, they're
finding people who were mentally ill. What's particularly problematic about
these cases is they're not finding the truly dangerous person
who would strike tomorrow. Instead, they're finding someone who is
(54:12):
easily manipulated via an informant. There are also arguments that
building cases against radicalized individuals via undercover agents isn't an
effective way to prevent terrorism. In many instances, this approach
pushes people towards criminal activity instead of away from it.
(54:34):
In Denmark, a program was introduced that focused on deradicalizing
citizens who had chosen to support Islamic State. Creators of
the program recognized that young people drawn to ys were
typically second generation immigrants who felt isolated and abandoned by
their communities. They designed a collaborative approach between police, Danish intelligence,
(55:00):
social services, the healthcare system, and education providers that would
see radicalized citizens receive counseling, mentoring, and support as long
as they hadn't committed any crimes. Named the or House Model,
it appeared to have some success. While thirty Danish citizens
(55:20):
traveled to Syria to join Islamic State in twenty thirteen,
that number dropped to one a year later and two
in twenty fifteen. One young man who took part in
the ore House Model spoke with the BBC about his
experience going by the name of Ahmed. He explained that
(55:41):
after he came to police attention for extremist leanings, they
approached him at home and took him out for a coffee.
They then introduced him to a mentor, another Muslim Man,
who worked with Hmed for months to deradicalize him and
to show him he had other options. The program ultimately worked,
(56:01):
with Ahmad telling the BBC, I'm happy right now. I
see my future in Denmark. I couldn't see that before
because it was all dark. Khalil Rayan spent almost four
years incarcerated at a federal prison in Indiana. For the
(56:23):
first six months, he was held in solitary confinement for
his own protection. Prison officials felt that the high profile
nature of Khalil's case and the allegations of terrorism could
lead to other inmates harming Khalil. In an interview with
the Gravel Institute, Khalil stated that his time in solitary
(56:43):
confinement permanently altered him. He felt forgotten by his family
and hopeless about his future. Quote, I really do firmly
believe that a part of me actually did break when
I was in there. Eventually, Khalil joined the General population.
(57:04):
He developed a routine that involved lots of reading, praying,
and working in the prison commissary. Khalil Rayan was released
from custody in June twenty twenty. He returned to his
family in Dearborn Heights and also rejoined social media. He
soon found a niche on the platform TikTok, where he
(57:25):
posted videos answering questions about what life was like in prison.
Khalil also began a serious relationship with his first real girlfriend,
though he struggled with trust issues for a long time.
He couldn't shake the fear that his girlfriend might actually
be an undercover informant. Khalil Ryan has shared his story
(57:48):
in a number of interviews. He is adamant that the
FBI knew exactly where his life was lacking and how
vulnerable he would be to a honeypot approach. Has also
been at pains to make clear how little of a
threat he was to the American people, as he never
had any plans to launch an attack. Khalil has pointed
(58:10):
to the grand jury's dismissal of any terrorism charges against
him as proof of this quote. My lawyer, he gave
me this quote that a grand jury indicts a Hamn Sandwich,
meaning whatever charges you put on a grand jury, the
grand jury's going to indict you on, and for them
(58:31):
to return back with no indictment on terrorism really just
goes to show that the prosecution didn't have proof beyond
reasonable doubt that there was some kind of crime committed there.
In twenty twenty four, Khalil spoke with Rolling Stone about
issues facing the young Muslim population of Dearborn Heights in
(58:52):
the present day. He said that he still lives in
fear that he might one day be stopped or raided
again by the FBI, adding that kind of stuff doesn't
go away.
Speaker 5 (59:32):
There's any number of new cars out there, but do
the numbers add up with Fugeo's stylish electric and hybrid
range the two thousand and eight, the three thousand and
eight and award winning five thousand and eight. They really
do enjoy a five hundred euro Dune Stores gift card,
a five year unlimited mileage warranty, and for electric cars
we'll add a free three year service plan and a
(59:54):
home charger too. The total package is hard to beat.
Visit your Localpuwter dealer today offer ends to say over
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