By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
A US man arrested in Kenya last month was ordered held without bond Tuesday on charges that he was joining with al-Qaeda to help overthrow the Somali government and form an Islamic state there.
Federal officials charged Daniel Joseph Maldonado, 28, also known as Daniel Aljughaifi, with undergoing military training with a terrorist organization and conspiring to use a destructive device.
Maldonado's arrest marks the first criminal prosecution of an American suspected of joining terrorists in Somalia, Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Wainstein said in a statement.
According to the criminal complaint, Maldonado traveled from Houston to Africa in November 2005. By December 2006, the complaint says, he was in Somalia and had joined with the Islamic Courts Union and elements of al-Qaeda to fight in a rebellion designed to overthrow the Somalian government and install an Islamic state.