An Iraqi man who sought to bring in an Islamic State hit squad to kill former President George W. Bush has been sentenced to more than 14 years in prison.
Shihab Ahmed Shihab Shihab blamed Mr. Bush for Iraq’s chaos after the 2003 U.S. invasion and toppling of Saddam Hussein.
Judge Michael H. Watson slapped a 178-month sentence on Shihab on Monday. The judge also ordered Shihab to face 15 years of supervised release, though he’ll likely be deported at the end of his sentence.
He had pleaded guilty to attempting to provide material support to terrorists.
His case highlighted the porous U.S. immigration system.
Prosecutors said Shihab entered the U.S. on a visa he obtained from a corrupt official at the U.S. embassy in Iraq. Once here, he sought desperately to stay, filing an asylum application and also trying to orchestrate a bogus marriage.
Shihab even obtained fake papers for a divorce from his wife in Iraq to set up the sham marriage attempt.
He also bragged to an FBI informant that he had smuggled members of Hezbollah, a terrorist group, into the U.S. via the southern border and planned to sneak in the Islamic State hit squad as well.
Authorities said his plot wasn’t just idle dreaming.
He was in contact with an Islamic State leader in the Middle East, he cased Mr. Bush’s home and office in Dallas and was poised to send the video he took back to the hit team, but was talked out of it by the FBI informant, prosecutors said.
Shihab’s lawyer, in a cryptic filing, had said he had provided “assistance to the United States” from before the assassination plot.
The FBI, in court documents, said Shihab wanted to be involved in carrying out the hit, but he said his group’s leadership told him to handle logistics and surveillance but leave the killing to the team.
Prosecutors had asked for a 15-year sentence, saying the U.S. needed to “send a clear message” that this type of brazen assassination attempt on a former president would not be tolerated.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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