New York
Woman convicted of getting Islamic State training after being teen bride to fighter
NEW YORK (AP) — A New York woman whose father took her to Syria as a teenager and arranged her marriage to an Islamic State fighter was convicted Tuesday of receiving weapons training from the militant group.
Prosecutors said Halima Salman, a U.S. citizen, pledged loyalty to the extremist group and willingly participated in its activities. Jurors were shown a video of her holding an assault rifle, a photo of her with the group’s flag, and loving text messages she sent her husband.
Brooklyn-based U.S. Attorney Joseph Nocella Jr. said in a statement that the verdict held Salman “accountable for joining forces with a terrorist organization.”
The defense sought to portray Salman, now 27, as a teenager who was unwittingly trapped in Syria’s civil war, first by her father and later by an extremist husband whose orders she had to follow.
“You try to leave, it is death,” Salman testified. She said she refused to be “married off” at age 18 and repeatedly tried to get a divorce.
Salman, her mother and even her defense attorneys wept after hearing the verdict. Still in tears, Salman and her mother later hugged each other across the railing between the audience and the courtroom well.
Jurors, who began deliberating Thursday, had repeatedly indicated Monday that they were struggling to reach a unanimous decision. The members declined to comment as they left court after the verdict.
Salman’s lawyers also declined to comment. They are asking the judge to set aside the verdict and acquit her, as federal law allows if a judge finds the evidence presented at a trial doesn’t legally support a conviction. Such requests are often made but rarely granted.
Salman’s conviction carries the potential for up to 10 years in prison. Sentencing currently is set for Feb. 2.
The Islamic State group, which the U.S. government designates as a terror group, seized large parts of Iraq and Syria in 2014 and declared the territory to be a caliphate. Despite its defeat in Iraq in 2017 and in Syria two years later, the group still has sleeper cells that carry out deadly attacks in both countries.
Born in Brooklyn, Salman was 17 when her father took the family on what she thought was a trip to visit relatives in Turkey in 2017. Instead, the van crossed into Syria, where masked gunmen surrounded them. Salman said she was frightened and confused, and had no idea where her father was taking them.
“I do blame my father for a lot of things that happened,” she testified.
She said she spent three months in housing run by the Islamic State group before reuniting with her family. They moved twice because their homes were hit by airstrikes.
On the first day of her marriage, Salman recalled, her husband told her: “Get up, stupid wife, it’s time for you to be a wife.”
She spent much of the marriage doing domestic labor for her husband and mother-in-law. Her father died after being injured in an airstrike in 2018.
Prosecutors insisted Salman was dishonest and had more agency in Syria than she claimed. They got her to concede during cross-examination that she once sent a religious song about Osama bin Laden to her husband. Prosecutors also disputed Salman’s account of a poor marriage, citing two loving text messages she sent to her husband.
“The evidence shows that the defendant received military training from a violent, brutal, terrorist organization — an organization that is responsible for attacks across the world,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Amanda Shami told the jury in a closing argument last week.
Salman’s husband took a video of her holding an assault rifle, which prosecutors said she had been trained to use. When she testified, Salman said she was only complying with her husband’s request to carry the rifle.
She recalled that her last year of marriage was particularly harrowing, as constant bombings sometimes forced them to live in the streets, where she recalled seeing “dead bodies everywhere.”
The couple eventually fled with other refugees in a truck, where she told her husband they were going to separate, and Salman testified that she never saw him again.
She was detained in Baghouz, Syria, in 2019 by forces opposed to the Islamic State group. She was arrested by U.S. authorities when she returned to New York in 2024.
Minnesota
Judge orders 30-year prison sentence for key figure in fraud
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A man who played a major role in defrauding a federal food program in Minnesota was sentenced Wednesday to 30 years in prison, the latest punishment in a sprawling scheme to collect millions of dollars during the COVID-19 pandemic by claiming to have fed needy children.
The depth of fraud in Minnesota — dozens of people have been convicted — has repeatedly drawn the attention of President Donald Trump, who ridiculed the Democratic governor for failing to stop it and partly cited it as grounds for an extraordinary immigration crackdown in the state’s largest cities.
Salim Said operated Safari Restaurant in Minneapolis, which specialized in dishes from Somalia. He was accused of vastly overstating the number of meals when seeking payment for providing food. The government said he was responsible for $44 million in fraud, some of which was committed by others he recruited.
Said was claiming a “ridiculous daily distribution of 6,000 meals” while FBI cameras showed 40 people a day collecting food, prosecutors said in a court filing.
Said, a native of Somalia, denied the allegations while testifying at trial in 2025. He described his restaurant as a go-to spot for Somali immigrants in “Little Mogadishu” and said many meals were delivered.
Said’s attorney didn’t immediately return a message seeking comment on the decades-long sentence ordered by U.S. District Judge Nancy Brasel. A sentencing memo filed ahead of the hearing by his lawyer, Samuel Savage, was unavailable to the public.
COVID-19 brought changes to a federal program that typically fed children through schools. Restaurants could participate, and food distribution was extended to places outside schools.
The government said Said hit the jackpot: He bought a $1.2 million home, commercial real estate and an $87,000 pickup truck.
Said was convicted of a raft of charges in 2025, along with Aimee Bock, the leader of a Minnesota nonprofit, Feeding Our Future. She is serving a 42-year prison sentence for devising the overall plan to recruit Said and others to join the federal food program during the pandemic.
State auditors found that the Minnesota Department of Education received numerous complaints about Feeding Our Future, but often told the group to police itself. In January, Gov. Tim Walz said he would not run for reelection after being pounded by Trump about theft in programs that rely on federal cash.
Woman convicted of getting Islamic State training after being teen bride to fighter
NEW YORK (AP) — A New York woman whose father took her to Syria as a teenager and arranged her marriage to an Islamic State fighter was convicted Tuesday of receiving weapons training from the militant group.
Prosecutors said Halima Salman, a U.S. citizen, pledged loyalty to the extremist group and willingly participated in its activities. Jurors were shown a video of her holding an assault rifle, a photo of her with the group’s flag, and loving text messages she sent her husband.
Brooklyn-based U.S. Attorney Joseph Nocella Jr. said in a statement that the verdict held Salman “accountable for joining forces with a terrorist organization.”
The defense sought to portray Salman, now 27, as a teenager who was unwittingly trapped in Syria’s civil war, first by her father and later by an extremist husband whose orders she had to follow.
“You try to leave, it is death,” Salman testified. She said she refused to be “married off” at age 18 and repeatedly tried to get a divorce.
Salman, her mother and even her defense attorneys wept after hearing the verdict. Still in tears, Salman and her mother later hugged each other across the railing between the audience and the courtroom well.
Jurors, who began deliberating Thursday, had repeatedly indicated Monday that they were struggling to reach a unanimous decision. The members declined to comment as they left court after the verdict.
Salman’s lawyers also declined to comment. They are asking the judge to set aside the verdict and acquit her, as federal law allows if a judge finds the evidence presented at a trial doesn’t legally support a conviction. Such requests are often made but rarely granted.
Salman’s conviction carries the potential for up to 10 years in prison. Sentencing currently is set for Feb. 2.
The Islamic State group, which the U.S. government designates as a terror group, seized large parts of Iraq and Syria in 2014 and declared the territory to be a caliphate. Despite its defeat in Iraq in 2017 and in Syria two years later, the group still has sleeper cells that carry out deadly attacks in both countries.
Born in Brooklyn, Salman was 17 when her father took the family on what she thought was a trip to visit relatives in Turkey in 2017. Instead, the van crossed into Syria, where masked gunmen surrounded them. Salman said she was frightened and confused, and had no idea where her father was taking them.
“I do blame my father for a lot of things that happened,” she testified.
She said she spent three months in housing run by the Islamic State group before reuniting with her family. They moved twice because their homes were hit by airstrikes.
On the first day of her marriage, Salman recalled, her husband told her: “Get up, stupid wife, it’s time for you to be a wife.”
She spent much of the marriage doing domestic labor for her husband and mother-in-law. Her father died after being injured in an airstrike in 2018.
Prosecutors insisted Salman was dishonest and had more agency in Syria than she claimed. They got her to concede during cross-examination that she once sent a religious song about Osama bin Laden to her husband. Prosecutors also disputed Salman’s account of a poor marriage, citing two loving text messages she sent to her husband.
“The evidence shows that the defendant received military training from a violent, brutal, terrorist organization — an organization that is responsible for attacks across the world,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Amanda Shami told the jury in a closing argument last week.
Salman’s husband took a video of her holding an assault rifle, which prosecutors said she had been trained to use. When she testified, Salman said she was only complying with her husband’s request to carry the rifle.
She recalled that her last year of marriage was particularly harrowing, as constant bombings sometimes forced them to live in the streets, where she recalled seeing “dead bodies everywhere.”
The couple eventually fled with other refugees in a truck, where she told her husband they were going to separate, and Salman testified that she never saw him again.
She was detained in Baghouz, Syria, in 2019 by forces opposed to the Islamic State group. She was arrested by U.S. authorities when she returned to New York in 2024.
Minnesota
Judge orders 30-year prison sentence for key figure in fraud
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A man who played a major role in defrauding a federal food program in Minnesota was sentenced Wednesday to 30 years in prison, the latest punishment in a sprawling scheme to collect millions of dollars during the COVID-19 pandemic by claiming to have fed needy children.
The depth of fraud in Minnesota — dozens of people have been convicted — has repeatedly drawn the attention of President Donald Trump, who ridiculed the Democratic governor for failing to stop it and partly cited it as grounds for an extraordinary immigration crackdown in the state’s largest cities.
Salim Said operated Safari Restaurant in Minneapolis, which specialized in dishes from Somalia. He was accused of vastly overstating the number of meals when seeking payment for providing food. The government said he was responsible for $44 million in fraud, some of which was committed by others he recruited.
Said was claiming a “ridiculous daily distribution of 6,000 meals” while FBI cameras showed 40 people a day collecting food, prosecutors said in a court filing.
Said, a native of Somalia, denied the allegations while testifying at trial in 2025. He described his restaurant as a go-to spot for Somali immigrants in “Little Mogadishu” and said many meals were delivered.
Said’s attorney didn’t immediately return a message seeking comment on the decades-long sentence ordered by U.S. District Judge Nancy Brasel. A sentencing memo filed ahead of the hearing by his lawyer, Samuel Savage, was unavailable to the public.
COVID-19 brought changes to a federal program that typically fed children through schools. Restaurants could participate, and food distribution was extended to places outside schools.
The government said Said hit the jackpot: He bought a $1.2 million home, commercial real estate and an $87,000 pickup truck.
Said was convicted of a raft of charges in 2025, along with Aimee Bock, the leader of a Minnesota nonprofit, Feeding Our Future. She is serving a 42-year prison sentence for devising the overall plan to recruit Said and others to join the federal food program during the pandemic.
State auditors found that the Minnesota Department of Education received numerous complaints about Feeding Our Future, but often told the group to police itself. In January, Gov. Tim Walz said he would not run for reelection after being pounded by Trump about theft in programs that rely on federal cash.
