Mahmoud Amin Ya’qub Al-Muhtadi, 33, was born in Gaza City, Gaza Strip, Palestine. He left the city and moved to the United States.
Al-Muhtadi worked in a restaurant in Lafayette, Louisiana, USA. The city is around 16 miles away from Saint Martinville, Louisiana, which is home to the St. Martinville Parish Correctional Center where he is currently incarcerated.
Mahmoud Al-Muhtadi
Al-Muhtadi is an operative for the National Resistance Brigades (NRB), a paramilitary group in Gaza City. Also known as the Martyr Umar al-Qasim Forces, the NRB is the military wing of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP).
At around 6:30 a.m. on October 7, 2023, the NRB, Hamas and several other Palestinian militant groups started carrying out a coordinated armed incursions from the Gaza Strip into the Gaza envelope of the Southern District of Israel. The attacks killed a total of 1,195 people, which include 736 Israeli civilians, 379 members of the security forces and 79 foreign nationals.
After hearing about the attacks, Al-Muhtadi allegedly coordinated a group of armed fighters to cross into Israel. At around 10:01 a.m. that day, his phone pinged a cell tower near Kfar Aza, Israel, which is around 5 kilometers east of Gaza City.
In June 2024, Al-Muhtadi submitted a U.S. visa application. He claimed in the application that he had never engaged in terrorist activities and he was not a member or representative of a terror organization.
In August 2024, Al-Muhtadi met with a U.S. embassy consular official. On September 12, 2024, he entered the U.S. through Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport in Texas, USA.
For several months, Al-Muhtadi lived in an apartment in Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA. On social media, he shared a photo of himself loading a gun at the apartment.
From Tulsa, Al-Muhtadi moved to Lafayette. In November 2024, he turned 33.
Federal Bureau of Investigation agents later located Al-Muhtadi in Lafayette. On October 16, 2025, he was arrested for his alleged involvement in the Hamas-led terrorist attack against Israel and at 12:58 p.m. that day, he was booked into the St. Martinville Parish Correctional Center.
CONAN Daily 