The first U.S. citizen to be charged with participating in terrorist activities in Somalia has pleaded guilty in a federal court in Houston to receiving training from a foreign terrorist organization.   

Daniel J. Maldonado (a.k.a. Daniel Aljughaifi), a 28-year-old Muslim convert, pleaded guilty on April 19, 2007, to receiving firearms and explosives training at an Islamic Courts Union (ICU) camp in Somalia.  ICU has worked with Al Qaeda to train recruits to fight for an independent Islamic state in Somalia. 

Maldonado was captured by the Kenyan military while trying to flee Somalia in January and was brought back to the U.S. in February.  Maldonado said he would have "no problem" killing Americans or with the September 11 terror attacks, according to an affidavit.  

Maldonado, who grew up in New Hampshire and lived in Houston for four months in 2005 before moving to Cairo, posted comments about his Islamic journey on his blog and on a forum called Islamic Networking. By September 2005, he became a moderator on the site, with administrative privileges, posting a total of 478 times to the forum.  In one such post, Maldonado complains about the conviction in an Austrian court of Holocaust denier David Irving, arguing that the world tolerates defamation against Islam, yet "…when it comes to the Jews! Oh, when it comes to the Jews....It's a different story!"

The ICU, a union of Sharia law courts supported by militias, formed in the 1990s to administer justice in the districts in which they were established.  In February of 2006, 11 of these courts combined their military resources.  One of the courts is led by Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, who is on an American list of terrorism suspects for his affiliation an Al Qaeda-linked group.  Another ICU leader, Adan Hashi Ayro, was reportedly trained in Afghanistan.

Maldonado is scheduled to be sentenced in June. He faces up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.