A 29-year-old New Yorker has been arrested while he was about to catch a flight to Pakistan to join the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).

Federal prosecutors on Friday announced that they arrested the Manhattan man, Jesus Wilfredo Encarnacion, on Thursday night at John F. Kennedy International Airport as he was about to board an international flight, with Pakistan being his final destination.

‘I want to execute’

Prosecutors say Encarnacion went online to try to join the terrorist organisation. He allegedly told an unnamed co-conspirator in November that he wanted to join LeT. “I want to execute. I want to behead. Shoot,” Encarnacion told an undercover agent.

“Encarnacion allegedly attempted to travel to Pakistan to join a foreign terrorist organisation and conspired with another individual to provide that organisation with material support,” said Assistant Attorney General John Demers. “[He] not only expressed a desire to “execute and behead people,” he scheduled travel and almost boarded a plane so he could go learn how to become a terrorist,” said FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge William Sweeney Jr.