Mustafa Mousab Alowemer biography: 10 things about Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania man from Syria

Mustafa Mousab Alowemer is a Syrian man based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. In or around June 2019, he bought several items he believed were necessary to assemble a destructive device.

Alowemer planned to use the items to construct the explosives that would be detonated in the vicinity of the Legacy International Worship Center, a non-denominational church in Pittsburgh. Here are 10 more things about him:

1. He was born in Daraa, Syria.
2. On August 1, 2016, he was admitted to the U.S. as a resettling refugee after escaping Syria’s civil war. He lived at an apartment in Northview Heights, Pittsburgh with his parents and siblings. He later expressed his allegiance to Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and started planning an attack on one of several locations around Pittsburgh, a Shia mosque and US servicemen before choosing the Legacy International Worship Center.
3. In 2018, he began contacting a woman who pledged herself as an ISIS supporter. She allegedly shared information on social media about how to make explosives and biological weapons. In 2019, she pleaded guilty in federal court in Wisconsin, USA to providing material support to ISIS.
4. Between April 16, 2019 and June 11, 2019, he met four times in person with an individual he thought was a fellow ISIS supporter but was actually an undercover employee (UCE) of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
5. In May 2019, he distributed multiple instructional documents related to the construction and use of explosives and improvised explosive devices (IEDs), including  “Beginners Course for Young Mujahedeen” and “The Extraction of Potassium Nitrate from Goat Manure and Other Methods,” to the UCE he met four times between April 16, 2019 and June 11, 2019. He told the UCE he wanted to meet one more time to conduct planning and coordination prior to carrying out the attempted bombing of the Legacy International Worship Center in July 2019. The meeting was scheduled for June 19, 2019.
6. On June 8, 2019, he graduated from Brashear High School, an English as Second Language school within the Pittsburgh Public School District. His classmate Diyome Mani described him as a quiet person.
7. On June 19, 2019, he was arrested at his apartment in Northview Heights and charged with one count of attempting to provide material support and resources to the ISIS and two counts of distributing information relating to an explosive, destructive device, or weapon of mass destruction in relation to his plan to attack a church in Pittsburgh.
8. He did not hold a U.S. passport and was not a legal permanent resident of the U.S. when he waas arrested on June 19, 2019.
9. On September 16, 2021, he pleaded guilty to one count of attempting to provide material support to the ISIS in relation to his plan to attack a church in Pittsburgh.
10. He was 24 years old when he was sentenced on November 8, 2022 to 208 months in federal prison followed by a lifetime of supervised release.