GRAND RAPIDS, MI -- Three Lansing men had pledged allegiance to ISIS and one was arrested at the Ford International Airport in Grand Rapids moments before he was to board a plane to join the terrorist group, federal authorities said.

The three men are charged with conspiring to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization, namely the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS)

Federal prosecutors said Muse Abdikakir Muse, 20, was arrested at the airport on Monday, Jan. 21, after he checked in for a flight ultimately headed for Mogadishu, Somalia.

Federal agents later arrested Mohamud Abdikadir Muse, 23, who is the brother of Muse Muse, and Mohamed Salat Haji, 26, as alleged conspirators. Haji is a cousin to the brothers.

All three men were born in Kenya but are U.S. citizens -- Haji is a naturalized citizen and the brothers received citizenship as minors through the naturalization of their parents.

In a federal complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Grand Rapids, an FBI agent alleged that all three men recorded videos pledging allegiance to ISIS.

“Muse Muse and Haji allegedly discussed with each other their desire to join ISIS, kill non-believers and even to potentially use a car for a martyrdom operation to run down non-believers here in the United States if they could not travel overseas to fight for ISIS,” according to a statement from prosecutors.

The arrests of the three men were made by members of an FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force at the Ford Airport. Police said Haji and Mohamud Muse drove Muse Muse to the airport in a Toyotal Matrix.

Police said they searched a house in Lansing following the arrests.

According to the complaint, investigators first began looking at the three men in April 2016 because of public posts on Facebook. In later months, undercover agents also communicated with the men via Facebook.

One of the agents posed as an ISIS recruiter, another as a Somali man involved in ISIS and a third as a “convert to Islam” located in Chicago.

During 2017 and 2018, investigators served several search warrants on Facebook to gather information.

In May 2018, Muse Muse allegedly sent Haji a screen shot of the truck attack that happened in October 2017 in New York City and killed eight people. In that instance, a terrorist drove a rented truck into cyclists and runners.

Later, in August, the two talked about Muse Muse’s ability to drive “in the context of using the vehicle as a weapon in a planned attack,” according to the complaint

Haji wrote: “On this Kufarr” [Arabic word for non-believers] and “Wallahi [Arabic phrase for I swear to God] I’m ready to meet Allah."

The undercover agent acting as the Somali eventually received videos from the three men, pledging their allegiance to ISIS. The FBI then worked covertly, using the undercover personas, to provide partial funds for a $1,700 flight out of Grand Rapids for Muse Muse because he continued to state a desire to go to Somalia.

Muse Muse was arrested at the Transportation Security Administration checkpoint.