HELENA-WEST HELENA, Ark. — According to the Office of the United States Attorney, a Helena-West Helena resident has been charged with providing support to a terrorist organization.
Bilal Al-Rayanni, a 28-year-old Yemeni national living in Arkansas, was charged with supporting a terrorist organization in Yemen, as well as providing a false name on a passport.
The superseding indictment alleges that Al-Rayanni, also known as Bilal Kassim Alawdi, provided material support and resources to a foreign terrorist organization known as Al Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).
Al-Rayanni provided support by working as personnel for the AQAP for three months in Yemen in 2014, knowing that the organization engaged in terrorism, according to the superseding indictment.
Al-Rayanni lived in Arkansas prior to traveling to Yemen in 2014.
The superseding indictment states that this activity occurred within an extraterritorial jurisdiction of the United States, meaning that Al-Rayanni’s alleged criminal actions took place out of the country, before he returned to Arkansas.
Al-Rayanni was originally charged on July 11, in a one-count indictment charging him with making a false statement on a passport application in May, alleging that he used a false name on the application.
Al-Rayanni will be arraigned before United States Magistrate Judge Jerome T. Kearney on Thursday. Al-Rayanni has been held in federal custody since originally arrested on the passport charge on June 27.