WASHINGTON (AFP) — A US court sentenced a Somali man to 10 years in jail for conspiring to aid an extremist group planning an attack on US soil, the Department of Justice said on Tuesday.

Nouradin Abdi, 35, pleaded guilty in July this year to plotting attacks, the department said in a statement. He told the Federal of Bureau of Investigation during interrogation that he wanted to plant a bomb in a shopping center.

He lived in the midwestern state of Ohio after gaining asylum in the United States by making false statements and was arrested in 2003 after asking permission to travel to Germany and Saudi Arabia to visit his family and the Muslim holy site at Mecca.

Prosecutors say he was actually heading for Ethiopia to train for “violent jihad” and charged him with “conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists,” the statement said.

“Abdi allegedly sought training in radio usage, guns, guerilla warfare and bombs,” it said.

An accomplice arrested with him is serving a 20-year sentence for aiding the Al-Qaeda extremist network, it added. A third was arrested in April.