Did 'Jihadi cool' lure 5 Americans to Pakistan?

AP via Google News ^ | December 20, 2009 | MARTHA IRVINE and NAFEESA SYEED

[Ready4Freddy]

By MARTHA IRVINE and NAFEESA SYEED (AP) – 1 hour ago

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — There was a book left in a Pakistani hotel room where several young men from Virginia suspected of trying to join Taliban forces stayed. Called "The Pact," that book tells the true story of three boys from a rough neighborhood and broken homes who bond and eventually help one another through medical and dental school.

"This is a story about the power of friendship. Of joining forces and beating the odds," reads one snippet on the back of the book.

It is also a story with a happy ending.

But the saga of five young men from Virginia — friends who grew up together and attended the same small neighborhood mosque — has been anything but that, quickly turning from one of promise to despair for many of the family members and friends they left behind.

There is sadness in their tight-knit Muslim community, and anger. These were young men who grew up with modest means, still living in small homes and apartments with their families, but who, in at least some cases, seemed as though they were on track to achieve good things.

[Ready4Freddy]

When keeping it cool goes bad, real bad.

[Bad Jack Bauer]

Yeah, the Muslims are unhappy that their little martyrs were not able to complete their mission. I’m saure that if these young men had been active in Christian churches, this would not have happened.