A 33-year-old man living and working in Lafayette, Louisiana has been arrested and is facing federal charges of taking part in the deadly October 7, 2023 terrorist attack on Israel.
According to a complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Lafayette and obtained by the New York Times, federal prosecutors accuse a man identified as Mahmoud Amin Ya’qub Al-Muhtadi of participating in the attack on Kibbutz Kfar Aza, a southern Israel community where 60 people were killed and 19 kidnapped.
His alleged victims included American citizens according to the extensively documented, 44-page complaint which the Times published in its entirety.
The complaint accuses Al-Muhtadi of attempting to providing material support or resources to a foreign terrorist organization and giving false information to immigration officials when he applied to enter the U.S. last year.
Al-Muhtadi arrived in the U.S. on September 12, 2024, via Dallas Fort Worth International Airport, according to the complaint.
The document alleges he lied on his visa application to enter the country, saying he had no history of paramilitary service or expertise with firearms, which could have resulted in red flags.
The complaint alleges that Al-Muhtadi was a member of the “NRB,” the military wing of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which coordinated with Hamas to carry out the attacks on Israel.
The complaint also included social media photos of Al-Muhtadi wearing a red NRB headband as he aims a military-style rifle in firearms training, apparently in the Middle East in 2019.
It alleges that Al-Muhtadi urged others to join the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack on Israel and that his phone later connected to an Israeli cell tower, indicating he had crossed the border.
The Israeli news outlet Ynetglobal reported:
According to the complaint, transcripts of Al-Muhtadi’s phone calls on the morning of Oct. 7 captured him urging others to prepare for the attack. In one call, he told a man to “get ready” and said “the borders are open.” In another, he instructed someone to “bring the rifles.” Hamas and allied groups killed nearly 1,200 people in Israel that day and took about 250 hostages.
The complaint, signed by FBI Supervisory Special Agent Alexandria M. Thoman O’Donnell, was filed October 6. However, federal authorities requested it be kept sealed so as not alert the suspect to the investigation, preventing him from potentially fleeing.
Inmate records showed a man named Al-Muhtadi, age 33, was being held at St. Martin Parish Correctional Center near Lafayette, according to Ynetglobal.
Al-Muhtadi apparently entered the U.S. with a visa.
The complaint stated that U.S. Department of State records show an individual by the name of “Mahmoud Almuhtadi” applied for an immigrant visa in June of 2024, stating he was “born in Gaza on November 2, 1991, lived in Gaza until March 2024, and resided in Cairo, Egypt at the time he filled out the application.”
The complaint also stated his “wife assisted him” in filling out the application and that he intended to live in Tulsa, Oklahoma and work in “car repairs and food service.”
However, Al-Muhtadi, according to the complaint, wasn’t very secretive about his knowledge of firearms after he was admitted to the U.S.
The complaint includes social media photos posted by the suspect in Tulsa in February of 2025 that feature a Glock 26 9mm handgun and another picture where the suspect is seen garbed in a red head scarf and brandishing the same pistol.
Al-Muhtadi was expected to make an appearance Friday before Magistrate Judge David J. Ayo, according to news outlets.
Contributor Lowell Cauffiel is the author of the New York Times best seller House of Secrets and nine other crime novels and nonfiction titles. See lowellcauffiel.com for more.
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