Connecticut Man Sentenced to Over Seven Years for ISIS Support and Plotting Prison Uprising

Ahmad Khalil Elshazly, a 29-year-old U.S. citizen from West Haven, Connecticut, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Victor Bolden to 92 months in prison and lifetime supervised release for attempting to provide material support to the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS). Court records show that in 2018 he expressed a desire to travel to Syria, swore allegiance to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and later pledged loyalty to al-Baghdadi’s successor, Abu Ibrahim Al Husseini Al Hashami Al Qurashi.

He operated a Discord server that circulated ISIS propaganda and paid $500 to an undercover agent to facilitate his smuggling to Turkey and onward to Syria. After his arrest in Stonington, Connecticut, he pleaded guilty in November 2022. While detained, he authored a handwritten plan for a coordinated prison uprising, which was discovered in August 2025. The prosecution was carried out by a joint task force involving the FBI, local police departments, and numerous federal agencies.