Al Jazeera News :A New York state resident was sentenced to 22-and-a-half years in prison for trying to recruit fighters to join Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS), the longest prison term handed out yet to an American convicted of supporting the group.Mufid Elfgeeh, a 32-year-old pizza shop owner of Rochester, New York, was sentenced in a Western District court on Thursday after the district’s attorney, William Hochul, called Elfgeeh “one of the first ISIL recruiters ever captured”. Convictions for ISIL-related activity by US citizens have become more frequent in recent monthsas more than 80 such cases brought by US prosecutors since 2013 work their way through federal courts.Although Elfgeeh pleaded guilty in December only to trying to recruit two individuals to join ISIL, he was also originally charged with trying to kill US service members and unlawfully possessing firearms and silencers.
