Former Overland Park man is indicted for alleged support of al-Qaida

Four men, including a former Overland Park resident, have been indicted by a federal grand jury in Ohio with plotting to aid Middle Eastern terror groups fighting American forces.

Asif Ahmed Salim, 35, moved to Overland Park in 2007 and left the country in 2011, federal prosecutors in Ohio said Thursday. He was an American citizen who studied at Ohio State University before moving to Overland Park.

According to the indictment, Salim and the others conspired to travel to Yemen and raise money for Anwar al-Awlaki, a key leader of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula who was killed by a U.S. drone strike in Yemen in 2011.

The other defendants named in the indictment are Yahya Farooq Mohammad, 37, Ibrahim Zubair Mohammad, 36, and Sultane Room Salim, 40. All three had ties to Ohio, officials said.

Prosecutors said that beginning in 2005, the men conspired to provide money, equipment and other assistance to al-Awlaki. One of the men traveled to Yemem in 2009 and turned over about $22,000 to associates of the terrorist leader.

Part of the conspiracy involved illegally obtaining funds by opening credit card accounts and withdrawing money with no intention of paying it back, according to the indictment.

“These individuals conspired and then acted on their radical beliefs by providing support to a known terrorist organization,” Stephen D. Anthony, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Cleveland office, said in a written release.

Barry Grissom, U.S. attorney for Kansas, also commented in writing that even Kansas “is not far removed from the battlefields of the war on terror.”

“We will do everything in our power to prevent funding and material support from finding its way from the heart of America to terrorists in foreign lands,” Grissom said.

According to his LinkedIn page, Salim currently works as a professional services manager for a geographic information systems firm in the United Arab Emirates. In the Kansas City area, he was an implementation analyst for GE Oil & Gas, according to the LinkedIn page.

This story was originally published November 5, 2015 at 3:28 PM with the headline "Former Overland Park man is indicted for alleged support of al-Qaida."