Nicaragua arrests four men suspected of ties to ISIS - US says they were on their way to Mexico

Ismael Lopez
Reuters
Wed, 26 Jun 2019 18:25 UTC

Four men with suspected ties to the Islamic State militant group were captured on Tuesday by members of the Nicaraguan armed forces after entering the country illegally from Costa Rica, Nicaraguan police said.

The identities of three of the men matched those of suspects featured in an alert attributed to U.S. Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) warning that three possible terrorists had recently arrived in Central America.

In a statement, Nicaraguan police said two of the men were Egyptian nationals and the other two were Iraqi. The four were due to be deported back to Costa Rica, it added.

The Egyptians were named as Mohamed Ibrahim, 33, and Mahmoud Samy Eissa, 26, while the Iraqis were Ahmed Ghanim Mohamed Al Jubury, 41 and Mustafa Ali Mohamed Yaoob, 29.

The first three men were named in the HSI alert published by Mexican media on Monday, which identified them as possible members of Islamic State headed for the United States.

Questioned on the HSI alert on Tuesday, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said his government was aware of the search for the suspects and was dealing with the matter.

U.S. Homeland Security officials could not immediately be reached for comment by Reuters.

The three men who featured in the HSI alert were registered in Costa Rica on June 9, according to the Nicaraguan statement. That date matched the information as the HSI statement.

The fourth suspect, Mohamed Yaoob, was registered in Costa Rica on June 13, the statement said.

The men entered Nicaragua through an unauthorized crossing point known as La Guasimada in the Cardenas municipality on the southwestern border with Costa Rica, Nicaraguan police said.

After arresting the men at around 10 a.m., the army handed them over to national police for investigation, whereupon they were taken to migration authorities for deportation via the Penas Blancas border crossing, the statement said.

The four men were delivered to Costa Rican migration authorities at around 7 p.m., Nicaragua's government said.

Comment: Two days ago, Breitbart reported the following:

Mexican authorities are on high alert regarding three ISIS-linked terror suspects who are believed to be making their way from Central America to Mexico and potentially the U.S. border. Authorities were warned the suspects could try to enter Mexico within a large migrant group or with the help of human smugglers.

Breitbart News exclusively confirmed that Mexican Federal Police are on alert, preparing to encounter or arrest Ahamed Ghanim Mohamed Al Juburi from Iraq, and Ibrahim Mohamed and Mohamed Eissa from Egypt. The three men are believed to have entered through Panama in May, crossed through Costa Rica on June 9, and could be headed to Mexico, a leaked internal security memo revealed. The documents make reference to BITMAP, the U.S. Homeland Security Investigations' Biometric Identification Transnational Migration Alert Program, a collection of databases on "special interest aliens, violent criminals, fugitives and confirmed or suspected terrorists encountered within illicit pathways."

A document obtained by Breitbart News from Mexico's Federal Police revealed that on June 21, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security warned Mexico about the suspects and asked for cooperation in attempting to stop them if they were encountered in or approaching Mexico. The document asked for cooperation from all Mexican agencies.

Interestingly, this comes after the first "credible" information hinting at ISIS using Latin America as a means of entering the U.S. The idea had been floating around in recent years, but it was only after the following story made the news that it hinted at a real possibility:

• Ex-ISIS fighter claims ISIS planned to infiltrate US through porous Mexican border

And now we have the first arrests of exactly that scenario. Coincidence?