Update: Terrorism Trial California: Men Sought to Commit Violent Jihad

Posted on August 15, 2014 by a12iggymom

Two men accused of conspiring to join Al-Qaeda and Taliban combatants to kill American troops in Afghanistan were convinced that committing “violent Jihad” would lead to “heavenly rewards,” a prosecutor said earlier this week.
An attorney for one of the men argued that they were “directionless” twentysomethings immersed in a fantasy about fighting holy war, but they never had any intention of acting on their “terrorist talk.”
The federal trial of Ralph Kenneth DeLeon, 25, of Ontario and Sohiel Omar Kabir, 36, of Pomona began Wednesday afternoon with opening statements before U.S. District Judge Virginia Phillips in Riverside.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Susan DeWitt …