Two Aurora men who were accused in a terror plot earlier this year are expected to plead guilty next month.
Hasan Edmonds, a member of the Illinois National Guard, and his cousin, Jonas Edmonds, are accused of plotting to attack the Guard base in Joliet where Hasan Edmonds had trained.
They are also accused of trying to go to the Mideast to aid Islamic State terrorists.
Both now are expected to enter into plea agreements; change-of-plea hearings are set for next month, with Jonas scheduled to appear Dec. 9 and Hasan on Dec. 14, prosecutors say.
Hasan Edmonds planned to travel overseas to fight alongside Islamic State terrorists, federal authorities claim. He was arrested March 25 at Midway Airport as he tried to fly to Cairo, Egypt. He had served with the Guard’s 634th Brigade Support Battalion in Joliet, and after he left the country, Jonas Edmonds planned to disguise himself in Hasan Edmond’s uniform and attack the base where Hasan Edmonds had been training, in hopes of killing up to 120 soldiers, the feds say.
Jonas Edmonds was arrested without incident at his home in Aurora around the same time his cousin was nabbed, authorities said. Hasan Edmonds had allegedly identified officers for him to target, telling him to “kill the head.”
Relatives said the charges shocked the family, and their grandmother said she would have turned them in herself if she’d known what they were plotting.
“Two of our family members have completely went berserk,” Lubertha Bates of Aurora told the Chicago Sun-Times at the time of the arrests.
Hasan Edmonds (left) and Jonas Edmonds are accused of attempting to join ISIL and of plotting to kill 120 U.S. soldiers in Illinois | (myspace and Georgia Department of Corrections
