Terror Expert Testifies In Minnesota Case

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- Testimony continued Thursday in the terror trial of three young Twin Cities men accused of plotting to join ISIS.

Charles Lister, an expert witness for the prosecution, testified that in August of 2014 the Islamic State distributed the first of a series of gruesome behaving videos of American and British hostages. Lister is a terror expert with the Brookings Institute.

Prosecutors have sought to drive home the point that the defendants -- Mohammed Farah, 22, Abdirahman Daud, 22, and Guled Omar, 21 -- had to know of the group's brutality.

However, a defense attorney for Farah got the prosecution witness to admit that in addition to ISIS there are hundreds of other groups fighting in Syria. These groups, the expert admitted, also have foreign fighters and some even have the financial and political backing of the U.S. government.

The trial is expected to last four weeks.