Nicaraguan officials have arrested four suspected ISIS terrorists who were on their way to the U.S.-Mexico border this week.
The four suspects, all from Egypt and Iraq, obtained travel documents from the Costa Rican government earlier this month and were apprehended Tuesday by the Nicaraguan army as they were entering an unauthorized crossing point called La Guasimada, according to a statement by the Nicaragua National Police.
The statement listed the suspects’ identities as Mohamed Ibrahim and Mahmoud Samy Eissa from Egypt, and Ahmed Ghanim Mohamed Al Jubury and Mustafa Ali Mohamed Yaoob from Iraq.
Documents Breitbart first obtained from the Mexico Federal Police show that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security issued a warning about at least three of the four suspects, calling them “possible terrorists.”
Nicaragua entrega a Costa Rica a cuatro hombres por supuestos nexos con el Estado Islámico https://t.co/B8msMyjJ4i pic.twitter.com/RSYpNpjvJF
— La Nación (@nacion) June 26, 2019
All four suspects were deported to Costa Rica on Tuesday evening.
Officials suspected the four men were on their way to the U.S.
The suspects were previously identified in Panama, indicating that they were following a northern trek, much like the migrant caravans from the region.
Costa Rica’s Migration Police are investigating whether or not the suspects are connected to ISIS and could not yet confirm a link, officials told Cosa Rican media outlet Teletica.com.
Costa Rican officials said the suspects were permitted entry because they were not flagged in national or international databases.
“It is important to note that people entered our country on June 9, as part of the controlled flow maintained by Panama and Costa Rica. Through the entry process, Costa Rica makes the corresponding inquiries of the biometric data captured, being that at the date of admission they did not have alerts in the national and international security systems,” a translated message from Costa Rican Minister of Public Security Michael Soto said, as Teletica.com reported.
Soto added that the U.S. Homeland Security bulletin was released after the suspects had already traveled through Costa Rica.
Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador confirmed Tuesday that he was aware of the ISIS suspects in the region and said “the security cabinet is taking care of the matter,” Telemundo reported.
Mexico’s secretary of Security and Citizen Protection of Mexico, Alfonso Durazo, said such an alert from the U.S. is “frequent” and “means that they have identified [suspects’] movements, without specifying the address or the country to which they are directed,” according to Telemundo.
