Kenyan national Cholo Abdi Abdullah is expected to appear in a New York court this Wednesday and charged with concocting a 9/11-style terror plot involving flying a hijacked airliner into a skyscraper in a major US city.

 terror suspect is reported to be affiliated with al Shabaab, a Salafi Wahhabist jihadist group based in East Africa with direct links to al-Qaeda.

Kenyan national Cholo Abdi Abdullah is expected to appear in a New York court Wednesday and charged with concocting a 9/11-style terror plot involving flying a hijacked airliner into a skyscraper in a major US city.

Abdullah, 30, faces six counts of terrorism-related offenses, including conspiring to provide material support to a designated terrorist group, conspiring to commit aircraft piracy, conspiring to kill US nationals, conspiring to destroy aircraft, and conspiring to commit acts of terrorism across national boundaries. Each individual charge carries with it a penalty of between 20 years and life in prison.

In a statement released Wednesday, the US Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York indicated that Mr. Abdullah was arrested in the Philippines in July 2019, and transfered to US custody on December 15, 2020.

While in the Philippines, Abdullah was said to have obtained pilot training, and to have researched the means to hijack a commercial jetliner, as well as information about the tallest building in a major US city, and the procedure for obtaining a US visa.