FBI says two former WKU students were terrorists

Two former Western Kentucky University students became ISIS terrorist recruits and trained in Syria while attending the Bowling Green school, according to court records.

One of the then-students issued a warning in an email to WKU in June 2015 after he left the U.S. saying, in part: "In sha Allah [God willing] when we conquer the U.S. I will look for you." This was disclosed in the federal court case of the students' associate, Mirsad Hariz Adem Ramic, filed in the Western District of Kentucky. The Courier Journal reported Ramic's arrest and sentencing last month and has learned new details of the case through a review of court filings.

The university shared the emails with the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Louisville field office.

The other student apparently died in 2015 during a conflict in Iraq and was referred to as a martyr by the other two, according to a criminal complaint filed by an FBI agent against Ramic, who lived in Bowling Green. Ramic did not attend WKU but was in regular communication with the two students.

Five messages left with WKU's Communications and Marketing Department and spokesman Jace Lux seeking comment from July 9-16 were not returned. Court documents don't reveal when the students first came to Kentucky.

The two college students were from Syria were in the U.S. on student visas and on campus by at least early 2014, according to court records. Their names have not been released and have been shielded in documents filed in Ramic's case filed in federal court in Warren County. The former students are listed as "CC-1" and "CC-2," referring to cooperating coconspirators.

The university can screen potential students, including ones from foreign countries, academically, but it falls to the U.S. government to thoroughly screen visa applicants. Once a university agrees to accept a person as a full-time student, the individual has to submit a photo and visa application, then register with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Student and Exchange Visitor Information System, maintained by the Department of Homeland Security.

The information system is a "critical tool in our mission to protect national security while supporting the legal entry of more than one million (nonimmigrants) to the United States for education and cultural exchange," according to the government website. Prospective students also must schedule an in-person interview with the U.S. Embassy or Consulate office, preferably in their home country.

Investigators found evidence that the students were radicalized after coming to Kentucky, primarily swayed by online propaganda.

Ramic has dual U.S.-Bosnian citizenship, but documents don't reveal how long he lived in Bowling Green or how he met the two WKU students.

A federal jury in Bowling Green convicted Ramic in June on charges of providing material support to the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, or ISIS, conspiring to provide material support and receiving military-type training from the designated foreign terrorist organization.

Evidence showed that Ramic, 34, and the two students coordinated their June 3, 2014 flights out of the U.S. to arrive separately in Istanbul, Turkey. The trio booked flights leaving from Nashville International Airport, with Ramic traveling through Houston and the others making a stop at Dulles International Airport outside Washington, D.C.

Once in Turkey, the three allegedly abandoned the rest of their existing travel itineraries and used cash to purchase one-way tickets to fly to Gaziantep, Turkey, near the Syrian border, according to the FBI.

Ramic and the two students crossed into Syria and joined ISIL or ISIS, according the allegations in the FBI criminal complaint. The terrorist network, historically known by outsiders as AQI, publicly released an audio recording in 2014 rebranding itself as the Islamic State, or IS, according to the FBI.

Ramic and the two others exchanged emails, sharing their locations while in Syria and Iraq in cities controlled by the terrorist network. They referenced jihad and the death of CC-2 during a battle in early 2015, viewing him as a martyr.

The first student emailed Ramic on March 14, 2015, claiming the second student went to fight jihad and was killed by the crusader's plane in Tal Hamis, Syria, while trying to deter an attack by the Partiya Karkeren Kurdistani (PKK). The FBI noted the PKK is also known as the Kurdistan Worker's Party and is the primary Kurdish militia group fighting ISIL or ISIS in or near Kobane, Syria.

The first student, known as CC-1, emailed WKU two times after leaving the U.S. from his email account listed in his student file. On Sept. 18, 2014, his statement read in part: "three months ago I came to factually believe in the Islamic state in Iraq and Levant. IS.I.L is the true way."

The student sent the college another email June 8, 2015, saying in part: "I am with Islamic state" and vowing to help defeat the U.S., according to the 2016 criminal complaint filed by an FBI agent who spent five years as an intelligence analyst in the Counterterrorism Division of FBI headquarters.

The Counterterrorism Section of the U.S. Justice Department's National Security Division teamed with the Western District of Kentucky's U.S. Attorney's Office to prosecute Ramic.

Their evidence included a photograph of Ramic, posted on social media, that showed him dressed in camouflage clothing and standing in front of a truck decorated with the ISIS flag and equipped with a gun capable of downing aircraft.

Ramic is said to have joined an ISIS fighting unit comprised mostly of Bosnian foreign fighters and participated in an ISIS offensive in Kobane, Syria.

ISIS called for attacks against the U.S. and Western interests around the world, inciting its members and sympathizers to plan or carry out at least 37 plots from February 2014 through July 2015, according to the FBI, citing National Counterterrorism Center data.

The U.S. State Department declared ISIS a foreign terrorist network for committing systematic abuses of human rights and violations of international law, including indiscriminate killing and deliberate targeting of civilians, mass executions and persecution of individuals and communities on the basis of religion, nationality or ethnicity.

Officials deported Ramic from Turkey to the U.S. in December 2021.

A federal district judge in Louisville is slated to sentence Ramic on Sept. 24. He faces up to 50 years in federal prison, where parole is not an option, and up to a $750,000 fine.

Federal prosecutors announced the 2021 arrest of Ramic and his June conviction on terrorism charges, but they haven't publicly named the two former WKU students. Investigators don't know the whereabouts of the one who survived.

The case remains under investigation.

Beth Warren can be reached at bwarren@courier-journal.com or follow her on X @BethWarrenCJ.