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Concept
Bryant Neal Vinas
Summary
Bryant Neal Vinas (born December 4, 1982; also Ibrahim, Bashir al-Ameriki and Ben Yameen al-Kanadeeis) is a Hispanic Muslim American convicted of participating in and supporting al-Qaeda plots in Afghanistan and the U.S.
After converting to Islam in 2004, he traveled to Waziristan, Pakistan, in 2007 with the intention of meeting and joining a jihadist group to fight U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan. He was accepted into al-Qaeda and received training in general combat and military explosives.
He also volunteered detailed information about the operation of the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) system to a senior al-Qaeda leader to help plan a bomb attack on an LIRR commuter train in New York's Penn Station. Subsequently, he participated in two al-Qaeda rocket attacks on U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan in September 2008.
He was captured by Pakistani forces in 2008 and transferred to FBI custody. In January 2009, he pleaded guilty to all three charges against him.
After cooperating with law enforcement and testifying in two European terrorism trials, Vinas was sentenced in May 2017 to three months in prison additionally to the time that he had already served. He will remain under tight supervision for the rest of his life.
Vinas lived on Long Island, with his parents and his sister, Lina. His parents had both immigrated to the U.S., his mother from Argentina and his father, now a retired engineer, from Peru. A one-time Boy Scout who grew up in Medford, New York, Vinas was raised Catholic.
His parents divorced in 2000. Vinas graduated from Longwood High School in Middle Island, New York. He joined the U.S. Army at age 18 in 2002, but was discharged after just three weeks of basic training at Fort Jackson in South Carolina.
While first living with his mother in Medford, Vinas had a dispute with her and moved in with his father in Patchogue, New York, in approximately 2005. He worked as a licensed truck driver and at a car wash, and sporadically attended technical college.
He converted to Islam in 2004, and is a member of the Salafi methodology.
Official source
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