Oh oh...ACLU sure to be ranting and raving over profiling!
Let's not jump to conclusions.
It was probably just a Moveon.org meetup.
http://www.pakistan-facts.com/article.php?story=20030627174524631
11 Lashkar-e-Taeba terrorists arrested in US
Friday, June 27 2003 @ 05:45 PM Central Daylight Time
The US authorities on Friday detained eight people they accused of supporting Lashkar-e-Taeba, which has been engaged in terrorist activities in the state Jammu and Kashmir. Another three people said to be living in Saudi Arabia were arraigned with the eight. All were accused of conspiring to help violence by Muslim terrorists in Kashmir, Chechnya, the Philippines and other countries. Anti-terrorist raids were carried out in three states in the Washington region, the justice department said in a statement. The eight detained "have been indicted on conspiracy, firearms and other charges for their alleged roles in a conspiracy to train and participate in jihad in Kashmir," said US Attorney Paul McNulty. The 11 who face charges include at least two men born in Pakistan, one Yemeni and one from South Korea. They were to appear in court in Alexandria, Virginia, in the Washington suburbs.
They were accused of giving support to the radical Muslim group, Lashkar-e-Taeba. A Justice Department statement quoted the indictment as saying "the 11 defendants allegedly conspired to prepare for and engage in violent jihad on behalf of Muslims in Kashmir, Chechnya, the Philippines and other countries. "As part of this conspiracy, the defendants allegedly obtained weapons, including AK-47-style rifles, and practiced small-unit military tactics in Virginia using paintball weapons and other equipment to simulate actual combat in preparation for violent jihad. The indictment alleged that some the 11 went to Pakistan and trained with Lashkar-e-Taeba. "The indictment also alleges that some of the defendants fired weapons in Jammu and in Kashmir," said the statement. The United States put Lashkar-e-Taeba on its list of foreign terrorist organisations in October 2001.
"When individuals meet in the shadows of our nation's capital to prepare for violent jihad, we will take action," said US acting assistant attorney general Christopher Wray. "Our success in the nation's war on terrorism depends on our ability to detect terrorist threats and prevent acts of violence," Wray said. The suspects were arrested in the states of Maryland, Virginia and Pennsylvania, an FBI official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. The eight detained were named as Randall Todd Royer, 30, Ibrahim Ahmed al-Hamdi, a Yemeni; Masoud Ahmad Khan, 31; Yong Ki Kwon, 27, a naturalised American born in South Korea; Mohammed Aatique, a 30-year-old Pakistani; Hammad Abdur-Raheem, 35; Donald Thomas Surratt, 30; and Caliph Basha Ibn Abdur-Raheem, 29. Three others -- Khwaja Mahmood Hasan, 27, a Pakistani-born American; Sabri Benkhala, 28; and Seifullah Chapman, 30 -- are believed to be in Saudi Arabia.
Complete article from Hindustan Times/Agence France-Presse.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/08/05/attack/main566688.shtml
Kashmir Plots Hatched In U.S.?
(CBS/AP) Eleven men, nine of them U.S. citizens, were charged with conspiring to join a Muslim extremist terror group that has been blamed for thousands of deaths in the disputed Kashmir territory of India and Pakistan.
A federal indictment unsealed Friday contends the men, who lived in suburban Fairfax County just south of Washington from early 2000 to May 2003, obtained AK-47-style assault weapons and ammunition, trained in military tactics and visited terrorist camps in Pakistan linked to the Lashkar-e-Taiba group dedicated to driving India out of Kashmir.
Six of the men were arrested Friday, two were in custody earlier and three were being sought.
U.S. Attorney Paul McNulty called the indictment "a stark reminder that terrorist organizations of various allegiances are active in the United States. And these groups exploit America's freedom as a weapon to recruit and position themselves on our shores."
McNulty said that Lashkar-e-Taiba has claimed responsibility for the deaths of 14,000 Indian soldiers and the killing of more than 300 civilians. The group, which appears on the State Department's international terror list, was behind the Dec. 13, 2001 attack on India's Parliament that killed 12 people.
There have also been reports of links between the Kashmir group, whose name means "army of the righteous," and al Qaeda, McNulty said. Although Friday's indictment does not allege any plots to stage attacks in the United States, it does say that members were told that U.S. troops in Afghanistan were legitimate targets and that "the United States was the greatest enemy of Muslims."
Alice Fisher, chief deputy in the Justice Department's criminal division, said the indictment underscores the government's "strong commitment to disrupting terrorist activities" before an attack occurs.
The 11 were charged with conspiracy, a variety of firearms violations and attempting to mount a military attack against a friendly nation, India. The indictment says that they used warlike paintball games to train in military tactics and practiced with firearms at shooting ranges.
Six of those charged were arrested Friday by the FBI: Mohammed Aatique, 30, a Pakistani national and U.S. visa holder, in Philadelphia; Masoud Ahmad Khan, 31, and Donald Thomas Surratt, 30, both U.S. citizens, in Baltimore; and U.S. citizens Randall Todd Royer, 30; Hammad Abdur-Raheem, 29; and Caliph Basha Ibn Abdur-Raheem, 29, in northern Virginia.
Two had previously been taken into custody: Ibrahim Ahmed Al-Hamdi, 25, a Yemeni national; and Yong Ki Kwon, 27, a naturalized U.S. citizen originally from South Korea.
Three others, all U.S. citizens, are believed to be in Saudi Arabia: Seifullah Chapman, 30, Khwaja Mahmood Hasan, 27 and Sabri Benkhala, 28. FBI officials said the United States is working with Saudi authorities to locate and apprehend the men.
Before the indictments were unsealed, the fathers of two suspects held a news conference at Washington's National Press Club to criticize what they called the government's heavy-handed tactics and proclaim their sons' innocence. King Lyon and Ramone Royer said they were present when federal agents made the arrests early Friday morning.
"My son is a veteran of the U.S. Army. He took an oath to uphold the laws of the United States of America," said Lyon, father of Hammad Abdur-Raheem. "He is a loyal citizen, the same as I am."
Trial dates for those arrested were not immediately announced. McNulty said each could face long sentences if convicted. =
India and Pakistan have fought two of their three wars over the mountainous, Muslim-dominated Kashmir region, which was made part of Hindu-majority India when Britain made both countries independent in 1947.
The two countries regularly trade fire over the "line of control" that separates their forces in the region.
Fighting escalated to the brink of war in 1999 and again last summer, raising fears of an all-out confrontation between the nuclear-armed rivals.
Pakistan claims to give only moral support to the rebels, but India says the association between Islamabad and the militants is stronger than that.
The arrests are the latest development in the Bush administration's "war on terrorism."
Last week, the Justice Department revealed that an Ohio trucker, Iyman Faris, had pleaded guilty to conspiring with al Qaeda to scout sites for possible terrorist attacks.
This week, the U.S. government opted to declare Ali Saleh Kahlah Al Marri, a Qatar native who had been in U.S. custody for more than a year, an enemy combatant. Two enemy combatants have already been declared; they remain in federal prison with no access to lawyers and no charges against them.
A top FBI counterterrorism official told Congress this week that the bureau is hunting possible al Qaeda cells in 40 states, but that a major attack on the United States did not appear imminent.
©MMIII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/000860.php
February 10, 2004
Islamic extremists invade U.S., join sleeper cells
"Islamic radicals are being trained at terrorist camps in Pakistan and Kashmir (India) as part of a conspiracy to send hundreds of operatives to 'sleeper cells' in the United States, according to U.S. and foreign officials." This from the Washington Times:
The intelligence and law-enforcement officials say dozens of Islamic extremists have already been routed through Europe to Muslim communities in the United States, based on secret intelligence data and information from terrorists and others detained by U.S. authorities.
A high-ranking foreign intelligence chief told The Washington Times in an interview last week that this clandestine but aggressive network of training camps "represents a serious threat to the United States, one that cannot be ignored." The official said as many as 400 terrorists have been and are being trained at camps in Pakistan and Kashmir.
U.S. intelligence officials said the camps, located in the remote regions of western Pakistan and in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir, are financed in part by various terrorist networks, including al Qaeda, and by sources in Saudi Arabia. ...
Several other camps are being operated by an anti-U.S. Muslim group known as Lashkar-e-Taiba, according to U.S. and foreign intelligence officials. Listed by the State Department in 2001 as a terrorist organization, Lashkar-e-Taiba is the armed wing of the Pakistan-based religious organization Markaz-ud-Dawa-wal-Irshad.
Eleven men, including nine U.S. citizens, were arrested last year in Virginia in what authorities called the "Virginia jihad." The men were accused in a 41-count grand jury indictment of engaging in "holy jihad" to drive India out of the disputed Kashmir territory. Six have since pleaded guilty.
The indictment said some of the men traveled to Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist camps in Pakistan, where they were trained in the use of various weapons, including small arms, machine guns and grenade launchers. The indictment also said the trips occurred both before and after the September 11 attacks.
Posted by Robert at February 10, 2004 09:49 AM
"Al-Qaeda represents the most significant threat to international civil aviation."
When they start downing planes, guess who the Libs will blame first?
Instead of pointing to PC policies of treating terrorists with all sweetness and light, they will blame W and his racist, illegal war that provoked such a reaction from the oppressed of the world. Then they will rush to provide the terror twerps with free counsel and honey glazed chicken with mushrooms and rice.
Keep in mind that during WWII when German saboteurs were caught in the US, they were executed after a secret military trial -- before they even did anything, just for showing up here.
Oklahoma. Imagine that.
Heck, I'm even wary of familiar men with rocket launchers!
BTTT
Are they sure it wasn't Janet Reno and a couple of others setting up for another Waco?
Can't wait to see the follow-up on this at snopes.com....
Posted yesterday
http://www.homelandsecurityus.com/default.asp
Also, from KTOK radio in Oklahoma City
Air Force Took Seriously Man's Missile Claim
Monday, August 1, 2005 at 2:27pm
Documents show Tinker Air Force base security personnel thought a man's story of seeing three Middle Eastern looking men aiming a shoulder fired missile at a plane was credible, but an FBI spokesman says today that's no longer the case.
By Jerry Bohnen
When Doug Clayton Yeaman went to Tinker Air Force base officials last month with a story of seeing three Middle Eastern looking men aiming a shoulder fired rocket at an approaching military airplane, they took him seriously. The FBI said today, however, that they unable to give credibility to the report.
Military documents obtained by KTOK News reveal Air Force investigators thought his story was 'credible' the day it was filed. Yeaman went to them the morning of July 13th. A so-called TALON report identified the location as 13003 SE 119th street and the Air Base Detachment 114 did the investigation. The documents revealed a day after the incident, the Air Force considered the matter to be 'Open/Unresolved'.
Item eleven of the report described Yeaman as a 'one time source. It read: "Credibility: Source is deemed credible however he has provided no information in the past."
The TALON report went on to describe in detail how Yeaman claimed to have seen the three men while he was visiting a storage shed where he keeps his business equipment. It was a few minutes before 10am on the 13th.
Initially Yeaman went to Oklahoma City police and as reported last week by KTOK News, the police report indicated he saw only two men. But the Air Force documents reveal he clarified things when he was interviewed by the FBI and AFOSI or Air Force Office of Special Investigations.
During the subsequent interviews, Yeaman said he saw three men. One was near the driver's side of the car and was using binoculars to observe the man. A second man was at the passenger's side of the car and was using a camera to take pictures. The third man was holding the weapon at chest level.
The report read: "YEAMAN described the weapon as a military green, tubular object, longer than a shotgun, two trigger grips on the front and rear and a diameter larger than YEAMAN's arm." When the men saw him, they fled in an older model four door GM Model car, a Buick or Oldsmobile.
The documents reveal the Air Force at that point took several actions, among them 'Coordinate with all base commanders, especially those in charge of flying wings.'
Another of the actions of the Tinker personnel was to notify the Air Force Office of Special Investigations Field Investigative Region 1 at Wright Patterson Air Force base in Ohio.
The national advisory was reportedly issued by U-S Army Major Mike Jackson of the
USNORTHCOM J34 Operations, AntiTerrorism/Force Protection.
When contacted today and told he was talking to a reporter, he hesitated and said the reporter should be talking to Public Affairs.
"That's about all I'm going to give you. You can talk to them," he added. While he looked up the Public Affairs telephone number, Major Jackson declined to give the geographic location of the phone number. "Thank you, have a nice day," he said shortly after providing the phone number.