Florida man sentenced to 16 years for publishing online propaganda to aid ISIS terrorists
A Cuban-born man has been sentenced to 16 years in prison after pleading guilty to supporting a foreign terrorist group by distributing propaganda videos on social media, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Miami said Wednesday.
Jonathan Guerra Blanco, 24, who lived near Fort Myers, was convicted of providing material support to the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, a spin-off of al-Qaida that has gained notoriety through its Middle East conflicts and decapitations of Western hostages.
Guerra had been arrested in Miami in September 2020 while visiting an undercover FBI operative. Guerra, a naturalized U.S. citizen who faced up to 20 years in prison on the single terrorism charge, struck a plea deal reached by his defense attorney Ana Davide and prosecutor Karen Gilbert. When he completes his prison term, Guerra will face a lifetime of probation, according to his recent sentencing by U.S. District Judge Robert Scola.
In late 2019, Guerra was swept up in an FBI undercover operation that targeted an Islamic State suspect known as “Confederate A” who allegedly collaborated with him in producing promotional and recruitment videos that were distributed on the Islamist terrorist organization’s encrypted social platforms and networks, including “IMN1” and “IMN2,” a criminal affidavit says. Guerra’s alias was “Abu Zahraal-Andalusi.”
The propaganda videos, graphics and instructional guides were designed to “incite and equip primarily Spanish-speaking followers to conduct operational attacks in support of ISIS,” according to the FBI affidavit. He was considered what authorities call a “keyboard warrior” who uses internet expertise to drum up support for ISIS recruits and missions. He was targeting Spanish language countries in South America as well as Spain.
“While IMN1 and IMN2 focus on producing Spanish-translated ISIS media, they also coordinate translations into various other languages, including English, Dutch, French, German and lndonesian.”
Deploying three covert online employees and a confidential source, the FBI exchanged information with Guerra about his developing videos and related media material for the Islamic State platforms. In their interactions, the affidavit says, Guerra held himself out as the head of one of the group’s networks, IMN1, tried to recruit the FBI’s online employees for contributing pro-Islamic State content and revealed his actual name to one of them after initially identifying himself as “Stefan Smart.”
This story was originally published February 3, 2022 at 7:00 AM.
