A New York City man has been sentenced to 15 years behind bars for trying to go to Pakistan to join a radical jihadist insurgent group.

Agron Hasbajrami received the prison term Tuesday in federal court in Brooklyn.

The 28-year-old Albania citizen and legal U.S. resident had pleaded guilty last year to providing material support to terrorists.

Prosecutors say he sent more than $1,000 abroad to help terrorist activities in Pakistan and Afghanistan and communicated with someone in Pakistan who said he was a member of an armed group that had murdered American soldiers. Authorities also say he expressed a desire to die as a martyr.

Hasbajrami was arrested at Kennedy Airport in 2011 while attempting to go to Pakistan.

(AP)