Jalil Aziz - multimedia main

Jalil Ibn Ameer Aziz as provided by Dauphin County prison.

A Harrisburg man accused of aiding the terrorist group ISIS uttered three words Monday morning that will guarantee him what promises to be a lengthy stay in federal prison.



The words were "Yes, your honor," and the 20-year-old Jalil Aziz said them to U.S. Middle District Chief Judge Christopher C. Conner in pleading guilty to aiding that terror group online, primarily through Twitter.



Aziz pleaded guilty to two federal felony counts that carry combined penalties of up to 25 years in prison and the prospect of remaining on federal probation for life. He has no sentencing deal with the U.S. Attorney's Office.



Conner will set his penalty during a sentencing hearing in May.



Aziz entered his pleas 13 months after federal agents raided his Fulton Street home in December 2015. Slightly built and barely 5 feet tall, Aziz was dwarfed by his lawyer, Assistant Federal Public Defender Thomas A. Thornton, as he stood before Conner in a yellow prison uniform.



The first, and most serious count to which Aziz pleaded guilty was conspiracy to provide support to a terrorist organization. His second plea was to a charge of transmitting a communication with threat to injure.



Both counts show Aziz "intended to promote terrorism," Assistant U.S. Attorney Darryl F. Bloom said during the 40-minute hearing. Bloom's co-counsel, Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert J. Sander, listed Aziz's illegal acts for Conner. It took a while.



Sander said that, starting in June 2014, when ISIS was overrunning parts of Syria and Iraq, Aziz began using Twitter and encrypted messaging platforms to spread ISIS propaganda, including calls to commit murders of U.S. servicemen and other "kuffar"- non-Muslims.



Aziz used 71 Twitter accounts, never set up under his real name, to transmit an array of threats, including a promise to behead then-President Barack Obama in the White House, Sander said.



Several times, the prosecutor said, Aziz tweeted out an ISIS "kill list" containing the names of 100 American service people, including pilots who had bombed ISIS fighters, that the terror group wanted its followers to assassinate. The lists included the home addresses and photos of the targets, including one picture of a U.S. pilot holding his newborn baby, Sander said.



"Those U.S. guys are pretty f****ed," Aziz tweeted after sending out the assassination list, Sander said.



He said that following a May 2015 terror attack in Texas, Aziz tweeted out urgings to mount more such attacks throughout the U.S. and in the United Kingdom, Holland and France. Those messages went out to thousands of Aziz's Twitter followers, Sander said.



Aziz, a U.S. citizen, pledged allegiance to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the prosecutor said, and was in contact online with a top ISIS official. Sander said Aziz referred others seeking to join ISIS in Iraq and Syria to that official, who provided them with assistance to sneak across the Turkish border.



Aziz himself expressed a desire online to join ISIS. He advised would-be fighters to smuggle themselves into ISIS' self proclaimed "caliphate" by posing as students or civilian workers, Sander said.



Bloom said Aziz's guilty pleas also allow the government to destroy items seized from his home, including two "military-style" backpacks. Aziz also possessed several rifle magazines, ammunition and a modified kitchen knife, he said.



When Sander finished speaking, Conner asked Aziz if he admitted to the accusations. Aziz paused to confer with Thornton.



"Mr. Aziz does not remember all the individual tweets that he sent out, but he does admit to the conduct," Thornton told the judge.



"I admit to all the conduct," Aziz added.



Aziz entered his guilty pleas a week before he was to go to trial. The pleas also followed months of dispute between his attorneys and the prosecution over access to investigative material that prosecutors successfully argued must be kept secret for reasons of national security.