Free Republic

August 11, 2004 -- A Pakistani who lives in Queens is being held in Charlotte, N.C., after videotaping skyscrapers in six major U.S. cities and making mysterious money transfers totaling $120,000, prosecutors said yesterday. Kamran Shaikh, 35, a father of three who lives in Elmhurst, also videotaped mass-transit systems in four of the cities and a dam in Texas, prosecutors said. Shaikh, who has lived in the United States for 13 years and has used the alias Kamran Akhtar, is being held without bail on immigration charges. He was busted in Charlotte on July 20 after Police Officer Anthony Maglione...

INTELLIGENCEMan Is Held After Police Seize Tapes of Buildings and a DamBy ERIC LICHTBLAUPublished: August 11, 2004 ASHINGTON, Aug. 10 - The federal authorities, on heightened alert over the prospect of another Al Qaeda attack, are conducting a terrorism investigation into an illegal immigrant from Pakistan found with videotapes of downtown buildings and transit systems in four Southern states and of a dam in Texas, officials said on Tuesday.Officials acknowledged that they had no direct evidence linking the suspect, a former Queens resident named Kamran Shaikh, to terrorism. But they said they remained keenly interested in determining why he made...