Posted on 07/22/2009 1:11:46 PM PDT by nickcarraway
American-born convert allegedly gave terror group info on U.S. rail systems
Court papers unsealed Wednesday in New York federal court say Bryant Neal Vinas (aka Bashir al-Ameriki) fired rockets on US troops in Afghanistan.
An American-born New Yorker fought side-by-side with al Qaida in Afghanistan and even supplied the terror network with information about New York's public transit system, according to federal prosecutors. Bryan Neal Vinas, a radical Islam convert who went by the name Bashir al-Ameriki, trained with al Qaida and took part in a rocket attack on a U.S. military base in Afghanistan last year, according to a three-count indictment unsealed in federal court in Brooklyn Wednesday.
Vinas, who lived in Patchogue as recently as 2005, was arrested in Peshawar, Pakistan in November of 2008, the court papers said. He is accused of providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization by giving "expert advice and assistance" to al-Qaida about the New York City subway system and the Long Island Rail Road. The indictment said Vinas received training from al-Qaida between March 2008 and August 2008.
Vinas' attorney didn't immediately respond to a telephone message.
Vinas, who converted to Islam at a mosque on Long Island, where he worked briefly as a truck driver and in a car wash, has been cooperating with European and U.S. counterterrorism officials since some time after his arrest, according to European and American officials, the New York Times reports.
The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the case, said he was a key witness in two terrorism prosecutions in Europe.
oh, not the magazine.
Any guesses on Party affiliation?
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