FBI, Pennsylvania Ave
FBI, Pennsylvania AveiStock

Indian American Shivam Patel, 27, of Williamsburg, Virginia, was charged with one count of making materially false statements on applications to join the military after lying about trips to China and Jordan on his application to join the U.S. Army and Air Force, Pamela Geller quotes the New India Times as saying.

Patel, formerly a Hindu who converted to Islam years ago, said that he wanted to join the “Muslim Army” and commit a peaceful jihad, explaining that he went to Jordan to find like-minded people but ended up getting arrested there and deported back to the U.S.

According to The Virginian Pilot, an affidavit unsealed on Thursday in the U.S. District Court said that before going to Jordan, Patel had flown to China in July last year to teach English but omitted the entire matter, claiming that he had not been out of the country in seven years except for a family trip to India in 2011-2012.

When Patel’s parents found out that he had been captured in Jordan, they told the FBI that he had become “obsessed with Islam”.

After investigators searched Patel’s room and computers, with his parents’ permission, they found evidence that he had researched how to beat a polygraph, had downloaded three copies of an online magazine produced by the Islamic State and had performed searches on how to join the group, the affidavit said.

The affidavit also stated that Patel had boarded a flight to Chicago on Sept. 2 and spoke with an undercover FBI Task Force Officer that same day, praising the terrorist attacks that had taken place in Paris, Nice, and Orlando and expressed admiration for Anwar al-Awlaki, a leader of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

He then spoke to a “confidential human source” in Detroit the next day where he expressed a desire to do something “bigger, better, and more purposeful,” like dying for Islam.

The Virginian Pilot also reported that Patel had spoken to the source again the next day, explaining how he would love to see a holy war between Muslims and non-Muslims and even sang an Islamic State fight song while he recalled making a replica of the group’s flag, which he wanted to replace his neighbor’s American flag with.

On Sept. 6, Patel returned to Williamsburg to apply for a job with the military as well as some paramilitary organizations.

He then contacted the source one last time on Sept. 23 to express his support for Maj. Nidal Hasan, who fatally shot 13 soldiers in 2009 while serving at Fort Hood in Texas, calling the attack “completely justified” as he believed that Hasan died a martyr and he wanted to become one, too.