He wanted to join Islamic State. He got as far as airport security.

A West Palm Beach man’s desire to join the Islamic State ended in a federal court guilty plea last week to conspiring to provide material support to the terrorist group.

Gregory Hubbard, 54, was arrested at Miami International Airport on July 21, 2016.

Hubbard, who also went by “Jibreel,” along with Dayne Christian (“Shakur”) and Darren Jackson (“Daoud”), were arrested and charged with conspiracy to help the Islamic State.

Christian pleaded guilty March 29 to conspiracy to provide material support to the Islamic State in Syria and to being a felon in possession of a firearm. Jackson pleaded guilty on April 4 to conspiracy to provide material support to the group.

Christian and Jackson will be sentenced after Hubbard learns his federal prison stay in April.

“They shared links for ISIS propaganda videos and websites, including ISIS beheading videos and lectures (by late Islamic lecturer) Anwar al-Awlaki espousing jihad,” according to Hubbard’s court documents. “They often all expressed their desire to travel to Syria to join ISIS.”

Hubbard’s admission of guilt says that in April 2015, he told a friend he was considering joining the terrorist group. Hubbard said he supported the Islamic State because they had set up a by-the-Quran Caliphate. He emailed the friend an Islamic State e-book manual covering training, battlefield strategy, even getting to Syria without legal authorities finding out.

The e-book apparently didn’t have a chapter in identifying legal authorities — Hubbard’s friend was an FBI confidential source.

So, the many law enforcement agencies involved knew that Christian claimed to have Islamic State contacts in Syria until they were “compromised.” They knew Hubbard got a new passport because he used the confidential source’s address. He and the confidential source bought tickets from Miami to Berlin, from which Hubbard thought they would take the train to Istanbul, then cross over into Syria.

And they knew when Jackson drove Hubbard and the confidential source from West Palm to Miami International Airport for their flight on July 21, 2016.

After Hubbard got his boarding pass, stood in the TSA security line and cleared security, he was arrested.

This story was originally published February 12, 2018 at 3:18 PM with the headline "He wanted to join Islamic State. He got as far as airport security.."