LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) – An Iraqi man convicted of trying to ship arms and cash to Al-Qaida in Iraq says he is not a terrorist.

Instead, Waad Ramandan Alwan says in a letter to The Associated Press that he considers himself a resistance fighter.

Alwan is in a federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana serving a 40-year-prison sentence after pleading guilty to taking part in a plot to ship thousands of dollars in cash and weapons from Kentucky to al-Qaida in Iraq in 2010 and 2011.

Prosecutors said Alwan worked with the Mujahidin Shura Council, a group that claimed responsibility for the deaths of three soldiers from the Fort Campbell-based 101st Airborne Division while they were patrolling about 60 miles south of Baghdad in June 2006.