(The Center Square) – Another Muslim man has been convicted and sentenced to years in prison on terrorism charges, including providing material support to the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), a designated foreign terrorist organization.
Abdulrahman El Bahnasawy, 28, of Ontario, Canada, was sentenced to 50 years in prison for offenses related to a 2020 attack on correctional officers at U.S. Penitentiary Allenwood, a maximum-security prison in Pennsylvania. This sentence runs consecutive to the 40-year sentence he is currently serving for his role in plotting a mass-casualty terrorist attack in New York City on behalf of ISIS in 2016.
“We will prosecute those who aid, attempt to aid, or commit violence on behalf of the pernicious ISIS ideology wherever they may be found,” U.S. Attorney Brian Miller for the Middle District of Pennsylvania said. Bahnasawy’s second sentence reflects the federal government’s “unwavering commitment to fight those who perpetrate violence in the name of ISIS even behind prison walls,” he added.
Accordingto court documents, Bahnasawy attacked two corrections officers while serving time at USP Allenwood on Dec. 7, 2020. Using a weapon he made from part of a steel desk in his cell, he stabbed one officer in the head and face. When a second responded to assist, he stabbed her in the hand. Both survived; the first officer eventually lost his right eye.
After Bahnasawy was restrained, officers found a note in his sock stating, “This is a terrorist attack for the Islamic State.” A pledge of allegiance to ISIS was also found taped to the inside of a locker door in his prison cell.
He pleaded guilty last November to multiple counts of assault, assault with intent to commit murder, and possession of contraband inside a prison. He also pleaded guilty to providing material support to ISIS, a designated Foreign Terror Organization. This case was investigated by the FBI’s Philadelphia Field Office and was prosecuted in the Middle District of Pennsylvania.
The attack occurred while Bahnasawy was serving a 40-year sentence delivered in 2018 for his role in plotting a mass-casualty terrorist attack in New York City on behalf of ISIS in 2016. Then 20 and while living in Canada, he plotted with two other coconspirators, according to the charges. Authorities say the other coconspirators are Talha Haroon, a U.S. citizen living in Pakistan, and Russell Salic, a citizen and resident of the Philippines. The three were charged on multiple terrorism offenses for their alleged role in planning to bomb and shoot at civilians in heavily populated areas of New York City, accordingto the charges.
Bahnasawy acquired bomb-making materials and helped secure a cabin within driving distance of New York City, where he planned to build the bombs and stage the attacks. Haroon made plans to travel from Pakistan to New York City to join him to carry out the attacks, authorities allege. Salic wired money from the Philippines to the U.S. to help fund the terrorist operation, authorities allege.
An undercover FBI agent infiltrated the group posing as an ISIS supporter and thwarted their plan, authorities said. The FBI arrested Bahnasawy in May 2016 after he traveled from Canada to the New York City area to prepare for the attacks. In October 2016, he pleaded guilty to seven counts of terrorism offenses.
Haroon was arrested in Pakistan in September 2016 andcharged withmultiple terrorism offenses by the DOJ. In 2019, the Islamabad High Court “reserved its judgement” in a case related to his extradition to the U.S., the Express Tribunereported.
Salic was arrested in the Philippines in April 2017. An orthopedic hospital surgeon, he was found to be “providing financial support to several extremists or suspicious terrorists in the Middle East, in the US, Malaysia," Philippine officials said at the time, The Asean Postreported.His attorneyclaimedhe only sent money for humanitarian causes, Salic has been fighting extradition to the U.S. Haroon and Salic have yet to be convicted of the 2016 terrorism charges.
Bahnasawy's second sentencing comes as young Muslim men continue to be prosecuted and convicted on terrorism charges 25 years after 9/11.
Nearly every week, a U.S. Attorney’s Office is announcing a new terrorism-related prosecution or sentencing, The Center Square has reported. The most recent was an 18-year-old Muslim manaccused ofconspiring to commit a terrorist mass casualty event in Minnesota and a 29-year-old Muslim man in Connecticutsentenced onterrorism charges after attempting to travel overseas to join ISIS to fight against U.S. troops.
Prior to that, the Eastern District of New Yorkannounced an ISIS-related prosecution of a Georgian national extradited to the U.S. who was wanted on multiple terrorism charges. Before that, in the Western District of Pennsylvania, a 21-year-old Muslim man was chargedwith planning to commit a major terrorist act on behalf of ISIS.
Similar cases are being announced nationwide. In most of them, the charges are similar: a Muslim man who was either not alive on Sept. 11 or was born shortly after the Islamic terrorist attacks is arrested, charged and prosecuted for supporting an FTO or attempting to carry out a terrorist attack.
(The Center Square) - Federal regulators authorized initial construction Tuesday on a southwest Louisiana gas storage project and related infrastructure that developer Black Bayou Energy Hub LLC says represents a planned $1.6 billion investment.The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s Oct. 20 limited notice to proceed, listed under docket CP24-494-000, authorizes Black Bayou Gas Storage LLC, a subsidiary of Black Bayou Energy Hub, to begin construction of certain facilities. The project, backed by global energy trader Mercuria, includes a 720-acre site in Cameron Parish about 7 miles east of the Louisiana-Texas border.In a Sept. 10, 2026, announcement, Louisiana Economic Development said the state offered the company $1 million for infrastructure improvements and workforce assistance. LED said the company is also expected to participate in the state’s High Impact Jobs and Industrial Tax Exemption programs. The announcement did not specify the value of those anticipated benefits.LED estimates the project will create 23 direct jobs and 35 indirect jobs across southwest Louisiana and Acadiana and support more than 1,000 temporary jobs at peak construction.“Receiving FERC certification is a key inflection point for the Black Bayou Energy Hub,” said Boris Bystrov, managing director of investments at Mercuria, in an Oct. 1, 2025, statement about the earlier certificate approval. “Strategic infrastructure projects like this are essential to our broader mission of enhancing market efficiency and supporting the energy transition. We are proud to back the development of this highly flexible and commercially significant asset in the heart of the U.S. Gulf Coast.”The construction authorization is separate from a capacity amendment that the company says FERC approved to increase the project’s working gas capacity from 34.7 billion to 44.4 billion cubic feet.Tuesday's approval allows the developer to begin work on aboveground buildings, well pads and the leaching plants required to carve storage space in the subterranean salt dome. The authorization also covers a high-capacity compressor station and 18 freshwater and saltwater disposal wells needed to create the underground caverns.The Black Bayou storage hub will connect directly to 10 major interstate natural gas pipelines, according to the developer’s federal regulatory filing. Those pipelines supply utilities across the eastern half of the country, industrial manufacturers and 10 liquefied natural gas export plants operating or under construction within a 25-mile radius.The company says current and planned LNG facilities within 25 miles represent more than 30 billion cubic feet per day of gas demand, while industrial projects with high energy needs and growing power generation at regional utilities also compete for supply.The Black Bayou hub's planned high deliverability rates would allow its operators to pull up to 1.6 billion cubic feet of gas per day off the interstate natural gas pipeline network for underground storage when supplies are plentiful. Alternatively, during extreme weather, the facility could rapidly deliver up to 2 billion cubic feet per day back into the regional market, which the developer says could help moderate price spikes.Lafayette-based Black Bayou Energy Hub expects to begin commercial storage of gas in two salt caverns in 2028 with construction on all four planned caverns extending through 2030.“More than $48 billion in LNG projects have been announced in Louisiana since 2024, and investment at that scale creates demand for the infrastructure and businesses needed to support it,” Louisiana Economic Development Secretary Susan B. Bourgeois said in the Sept. 10 announcement. “Black Bayou Energy Hub is a direct result of that momentum and an investment in sustaining it. This project strengthens the natural gas infrastructure that will serve major projects already underway while increasing Louisiana’s capacity to compete for what comes next.”
(The Center Square) – Two U.S. House committees are jointly subpoenaing the New Jersey State Department, accusing the state of not fully cooperating with an investigation into what it says are the more than 6,000 noncitizens recently found on the state’s voter rolls.
(The Center Square) - According to the former executive director of the Colorado Commission on Judicial Discipline, the state’s judicial branch has covered up judicial misconduct since 2018.
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