An active duty US soldier was arrested on terrorism charges after authorities say he pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group and said he wanted to “kill a bunch of people.”
The FBI arrested Sargent Ikaika Kang, 34, in a suburb of Honolulu over the weekend after a yearlong investigation involving multiple undercover officers and confidential informants. Kang made an initial appearance in federal court on Monday.
Kang’s court-appointed defense attorney, Birney Bervar, said it appears his client may suffer from service-related mental health issues of which the government was aware but neglected to treat.
He said Kang was “a decorated veteran of two deployments” to Iraq and Afghanistan.
A 26-page affidavit from FBI Special Agent Jimmy Chen filed in court Monday detailed how Kang thought he was dealing with people working for Islamic State but who were actually undercover agents.
Paul Delacourt, the FBI special agent in charge of the Hawaii bureau, said Kang gave military documents to people he believed would give them to IS. He told reporters the FBI believed Kang was a lone actor and wasn’t affiliated with anyone who poses a threat.
On Saturday, agents arrested Kang after he pledged loyalty to IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, saying he wanted to “take his rifle, his magazines and kill ‘a bunch of people.’”
Kang and the undercover agents together made combat training videos he believed would be taken to the Middle East to help prepare the group’s soldiers to fight American forces, according to the affidavit. Kang had received the highest level of combat training available in the army and was a mixed martial arts enthusiast.
Kang and an agent also allegedly went shopping for a drone to give to IS fighters.
He said the drone would allow the fighters to view the battlefield from above “to find tank positions and avenues for escape” from US soldiers, according to the affidavit. Kang used his debit card to pay nearly $1,400 for the drone, a Go-Pro camera and related equipment.
Kang, a trained air traffic controller based at Hawaii’s Wheeler Army Airfield, had his military clearance revoked in 2012 for making pro-Islamic State comments while at work and on-post and threatening to hurt or kill fellow service members.
His clearance was reinstated a year later after he completed military requirements.
However, the affidavit says the army believed Kang was becoming radicalized and in 2016 asked the FBI to investigate.
Kang has two firearms registered in his name, an AR-15-style assault rifle and a handgun. After the shooting last summer at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, he told a confidential source that the “shooter did what he had to do and later said that America is the only terrorist organization in the world,” according to the affidavit.
The document alleges he also later told the same source that “Hitler was right”, saying he believed in the mass killing of Jews.
He told the source he was angry at a civilian who had taken away his air traffic controller’s license and that he wanted to torture him, the affidavit said.
“Kang said that if he ever saw him again, he would tie him down and pour Drano in his eyes,” the affidavit said.
He had enlisted in the army in December 2001, just months after the Sept. 11 attacks. He served in South Korea in 2002-2003. He deployed to Iraq from March 2010 to February 2011 and Afghanistan from July 2013 to April 2014.
