
Police have launched a manhunt and formed a special task force to investigate the fatal shooting of a prominent…

The so-called “Oplan Romanov,” or the alleged covert operation purportedly aimed at eliminating Vice President Sara…

TACLOBAN CITY — Just a week after classes resumed following a fatal mass shooting on campus, officials at San Jose…

The Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) has signed up another corporation to expand public access to the…

Water reserves at Pantabangan Dam are rising steadily following heavy rains brought by the southwest monsoon and…

Read next

What's your take?
Google Preferred Sources
Get more Daily Tribune stories in your search results
Add Daily Tribune as a preferred source on Google Search.
Continue reading
A New York judge sentenced an American man to life in prison Tuesday for his role as a sniper for the Islamic State (IS) group.
Brooklyn federal court judge Nicholas Garaufis also handed down three other sentences — totaling another 100 years — to Ruslan Maratovich Asainov for providing material support to the jihadist group resulting in death, conspiracy to provide material support, and obstruction of justice.
Asainov, 46, continued to maintain his support for IS — which the United States has designated a "foreign terrorist group" — throughout his trial.
"Today's sentence rightly holds Asainov responsible for the carnage he inflicted as a sworn member of ISIS and protects the world community from this avowed killer," federal prosecutor Breon Peace said, using another acronym for the IS group.
"The defendant committed his life to that terrorist organization and became a lethal sniper for ISIS in Syria, training many other ISIS members to shoot to kill as ISIS waged its brutal, barbaric campaign," Peace added.
"To this day, the defendant maintains his unrepentant allegiance to that hateful cause."
Asainov, who is originally from Kazakhstan, left his family in New York in 2013 to travel to Syria, where he joined the ranks of IS fighters until his capture by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in 2019.
During his time with IS, Asainov rose through the group to become one of its so-called emirs, training other fighters in weapons and helping to build training camps.
He stayed in touch with US contacts even while he was in Syria, sending messages and photos of himself on the battlefield.
"We are the worst terrorist organization in the world that has ever existed," Asainov wrote in one such 2015 message, according to court documents.
He left for Syria with fellow American Mirsad Kandic, who was born in Kosovo and was himself sentenced to life in prison in the United States in July.