3 Brooklyn Men Accused of Plot to Aid ISIS’ Fight

Two young men living in Brooklyn were arrested on Wednesday and charged with plotting to travel thousands of miles to fight under the banner of the Islamic State, the terrorist organization that has seized a wide expanse of Syria and Iraq.

A third Brooklyn man was charged with helping organize and fund their activities.

Even as the Islamic State has been waging a brutal war in the Middle East, it has been spearheading an aggressive campaign to recruit Muslims to its cause, using social media to target young people across the world.

It has drawn thousands of fighters from nearby nations, tapping into a range of resentments, such as political oppression and personal disillusionment. More recently, the group has found scores of willing recruits in Europe, many inspired by the group’s gruesome videos of atrocities.

Now, the authorities say, its reach has extended into New York, to three men drawn by its apocalyptic message.

One of the men who allegedly sought to fight for the Islamic State, Abdurasul Hasanovich Juraboev, 24, worked in a gyro shop. The other, Akhror Saidakhmetov, 19, worked at cellphone repair kiosks owned by the third man charged, Abror Habibov, 30.

All three were immigrants from former Soviet republics, and though Mr. Juraboev and Mr. Saidakhmetov had become permanent United States residents, all of them remained citizens of their native countries, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan.

In online postings, the two younger men seem to be searching for meaning in their lives, and increasingly disillusioned by those around them — including Muslim relatives they see as living less than devout lives.

The case against the three men relies in part on a confidential informant paid by the government, court documents show. Defense lawyers have criticized the government’s use of informers in similar cases, saying they may lure targets into making extreme plans or statements And in some cases, the threat has turned out to be overstated.

Still, coming just days after authorities in London said they were looking for three teenage girls who are suspected of traveling to Syria to join jihadists, the Brooklyn men’s arrests heightened concerns about the Islamic State.

Law enforcement officials are worried not only about what people might do if they make it to the faraway battlefields, but also about what they might do at home if they fail to get overseas.

“This is real,” William J. Bratton, the New York City police commissioner, said at a news conference. “This is the concern about the lone wolf.”

One of the men was arrested at Kennedy Airport, where the government says he was trying to board a flight to Istanbul and then planned to travel to Syria to join the battle.

At least two of the men had threatened to carry out attacks on targets in the United States, including planting a bomb in Coney Island and killing President Obama, if they failed in their attempt to travel overseas, according to the government.

But their threats of violence had an “aspirational” quality to them, according to law enforcement officials, with no indication that the suspects were close to staging an attack, large or small.

Charged with providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization, Mr. Juraboev, an Uzbek, and Mr. Saidakhmetov, a Kazakh, appeared in Federal District Court in Brooklyn on Wednesday afternoon.