[Buffalo] FIVE AREA MEN HELD AS AL-QUIDA SUSPECTS

The war on terrorism reached into the Buffalo community Friday evening, when federal agents raided several houses and a store in Lackawanna and accused five men of Yemeni descent of operating an al-Qaida cell. The normally quiet neighborhood of modest homes and narrow streets was overrun by gun-toting police and FBI agents who ended a year-old probe with the arrests of the five men, all accused of providing material support and resources to the al-Qaida network.

Disbelieving residents poured into the streets as darkness fell, and authorities searched apartments and cars before taking the suspects into custody, then cordoning off their homes.

"We do have five arrests relating to an investigation by the Joint Terrorism Task Force of Western New York. FBI agents made these arrests in Lackawanna this evening," said U.S. Attorney Michael A. Battle.

Federal sources said this is the first case in the United States since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in which suspects are accused of having direct ties to al-Qaida. All five are U.S. citizens. One is a naturalized citizen, and the other four were born in Western New York. All have been living in Lackawanna for several years.

There is no evidence that the five arrested men were plotting anything in the immediate future or in the Buffalo area, authorities said.

Authorities said that the five men were graduates of al-Qaida camps in Afghanistan and that one is believed to have trained with John Walker Lindh in an al-Qaida camp.

One of the suspects is linked to Omar al-Farouq, a senior al-Qaida figure captured in Asia this summer, who has provided his interrogators with specific information suggesting that terror cells in the region were planning attacks on U.S. facilities, the sources said.

The suspects are believed to have had contact with those involved in the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.

However, the sources would not say whether any of the suspects had a direct role in last year's attacks.

Authorities declined to identify the five men picked up in Friday's raids. However, confidential sources, relatives and neighbors in the close-knit Yemeni community identified two of the suspects as Shafal Mosed, 24, of 183 Ingham Ave., and Yahya A. Goba, 25, of 74 Holland Ave.

On the streets of Lackawanna's First Ward, the Yemeni community reacted with shock and disbelief as police raided and cordoned off buildings on several streets, including Wilkesbarre and Ingham.

Mosed's brother, Albaneh Mosed, 25, was on the street, angry and fearful about Shafal's arrest.

"My brother is the most peaceful person in the world," he said. "He's a telemarketer and goes to ECC South. We knew the FBI was around. They've been watching our house. They've been terrorizing us for the last four months. My mother, Fatima, is sick over this. She's going to have a heart attack. Whatever the FBI has against my brother is a conspiracy. They're just trying to pick somebody out as a scapegoat."

He said his brother was picked up by agents at a deli on Genesee Street and Sherman on Buffalo's East Side about 7 p.m.

Four or five cars pulled up in front of the store where Albaneh works and Shafal was helping him.

"One of them had a gun with a grenade launcher," Albaneh Mosed said. "It was some kind of military weapon, and the guy chuckled. They opened up my brother's trunk as if they were looking for a bomb, and there was nothing in the trunk. My brother is a hard-working, law-abiding citizen."

He added that his brother is married and the struggling father of a 3-year-old son. He also supports their mother, who is widowed.

Neighbors of the five, who live within a short distance of each other and the Lackawanna Islamic Mosque, said they didn't believe the accusations.

"I grew up with these three guys. They are friendly and helpful and funny. They love this country. They vote and play soccer," said a man who declined to identify himself, standing in front of Shafal Mosed's home on Ingham Avenue.

Charles Johnson, who lived on Wilkesbarre Avenue near the suspects, said: "Those guys never bothered anyone. They would be out in front of their apartment house playing with their kids."

Leaders of the local Muslim community expressed concern that the entire Muslim community not be tarnished because of the arrests, and noted the community is cooperating with authorities.

Dr. Khalid Qazi, president of the Western New York American Muslim Council, expressed concerns for the safety of law-abiding Muslims and Yemenites living in the community.

He stressed that the community is as loyal and patriotic as any other community, and pointed out that members of the local Muslim community brought information to the FBI, which triggered the investigation, because they noticed suspicious activity.

Mohamed Albanna, a local civil leader and member of the Yemenite Merchants Association, said he knew many of the people who were targeted in the investigation.

"I know every one of them, and three were born here in the United States," he said. "I know they've been picked up, and their families are cooperating. And we as a community are cooperating."

The suspects are believed to have connection to Arabian Foods, a store on Wilkesbarre that was a target of the raids. Federal agents removed several boxes from the store Friday night.

A senior government official said the Justice Department plans to release more information about the arrests at a news conference today in Washington.

The five are being held in a federal facility and are scheduled to be arraigned this afternoon in Buffalo.

U.S. officials said the discovery of the cell was connected to information that also prompted the Bush administration to raise the nation's alert status to "code orange" - the second-highest - on the eve of the Sept. 11 anniversary.

Lackawanna Mayor John Kuryak said his police department has been cooperating with the FBI investigation for the past six to nine months, though not all members of the local police force have been in the loop.

In Lackawanna, an old steel city of nearly 20,000, Yemeni residents are a large minority that has long lived peacefully with other residents in the area. The Lackawanna Islamic Mosque is a center of the community.

In fact, Yemeni residents in the city include high-profile business people and political, social and civic leaders. The majority live in the 1st and 3rd wards of the city.

What did we (in America) learn from September 11, 2001 and the deaths of 3,000 of our fellow citizens. I am tempted to admit: Absolutely nothing.

Among the many unlearned lessons of Day-Which-Will-Live-In-Infamy-II-- the necessity to control our borders, the need for a patriotic renewal and the importance of combating multiculturalism -- the most significant is the nature of Islam. You will note that I do not say militant Islam, or radical Islam, or Islamic extremism or other such weasel words – but Islam, period.

Every one of the hijackers who flew airliners into the World Trade Center and Pentagon were professing and practicing Moslems, as is Osama bin Laden. The Al Qaeda terrorist network, is based in Moslem countries and supported financially by the so called pious Moslem leadership of Saudi Arabia.

The overwhelming majority of Moslem religious authorities who have spoken out on the subject, including those at the main mosque in Mecca and Egypt’s prestigious Al Azar University, either endorse or rationalize acts of terrorism. On a day when Americans were incinerated or buried under tons of rubble, Muslims from Nigeria to Indonesia, celebrated in the streets.

Sept. 11 was one chapter in a 1400-year jihad. Every day, the World Trade Center massacre is reenacted on a smaller scale somewhere in the world. Jewish women and children are burned alive in a bus in Israel. A missionary is beheaded in the Philippines, gunmen shoot up a church in Pakistan (deliberately firing into the prostrate bodies of women trying to shield their children). Ancient monasteries and convents are destroyed in Kosovo. Women are sentenced to death for adultery in Nigeria, Hindus are murdered in the Kashmir. In Denmark, the Muslim community there has put a $30,000 bounty on the heads of Jews and those who support Israel. Nuns are beheaded in Baghdad, Christians in Sudan are forced into slavery, and in Britain, Islam openly states it is going to take over not only the UK, but the whole world -- and the beat goes on.
Genocide in the Sudan, ethnic cleansing in the Balkans, religious persecution in Saudi Arabia, calls for another holocaust in mosques from Mecca to Gaza, the imposition of Islamic law in Nigeria, forced conversions in Indonesia, synagogues burned in France, Jews attacked across Europe – these are everyday events, as Third World and much of the First slowly turns Islamic green.

Sadly our leaders, from President Bush on down, insist on peddling the absurdity that Islam is a religion of peace – a creed of kindness and benevolence tragically and inexplicably corrupted by fanatics.

Why is the leadership of the West reluctant to confront manifest reality? The reason lies partly with our absurd foreign policy. We have declared certain Moslem nations to be our loyal allies – including Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan. We would not want to offend these dear friends by saying something unflattering about their bloody, butcherly, dark ages faith.

Americans are naturally benevolent. Most of us are taught from childhood that is religion is good (and it does not matter which religion). As long as little Johnny believes in God and goodness, it’s inconsequential whether he lights candles, wears a skull cap to services or prays in the direction of Mecca.

This works with every religion except Islam.
Consider the following: Of the three major western religions: one was started by a lawgiver who helped to free slaves; one by a man of peace; the last one by a man who loved war and having sex with children. Mohammed not only led men into battle, he enjoyed marrying girls as young as six years old (it is in the Koran). The essence of his message is sick and disgusting. A holy war where you slaughter your enemies, while at the same time encouraging followers to have sex with the children they capture (as he did) for the glory of Allah. He even advised his followers to negotiate false peace treaties in order to lull their enemies.

For almost 1,400 years, that has been the reality of Islam. Within a century after the death of Mohammed, Islam spread throughout the Middle East and across North Africa. It overran the Iberian peninsula and was finally stopped in southern France. It spread eastward as far as the southern Philippines. It was not propagated by fresh-faced young men knocking on doors and announcing: “Hello. I’m from your local mosque. Have you considered the Koran?” It was and is spread by force – conversion by the sword or death. This is still in practice today.

Some will respond that all religions go through periods of violence, usually in their infancy. Christianity had its crusades and Inquisition, its forced conversions and expulsions. The evil committed in the name of Christ happened centuries ago. The evil committed in the name of the Prophet is going on now, as you read these words. Of 22 conflicts in the Third World, 20 involve Moslems versus someone else. Coincidence? In his brilliant book, “Clash of Cultures and the Remaking of World Order,” Samuel Huntington speaks of Islam’s “bloody borders.”

There is no Methodist Jihad, no Hasidic holy warriors, no Southern Baptist suicide bombers, no Mormon elders preaching the annihilation of members of other faiths.
Islam is a warrior religion – the perfect vessel for fanatics, the violence-prone, the envious and haters of all stripes. This is one reason why Islam is making so many converts among the peaceable denizens of our prison system.

Still, much of the West is addicted to a fairy-tale version of Islam. Christian and Jewish clergy fall all over themselves to have interfaith services with imams. Representatives of Moslem groups are invited to the White House. The president signs a Ramadan declaration. In California, public schools ask children to role-play at being Moslems. Our universities take carefully selected verses from the Koran and present them as the essence of the faith. All that’s needed is a Moslem character on “Sesame Street.” Look – it’s the Jihad Monster!
This perspective engenders a fatally false sense of security.

Imagine, in 1940, Winston Churchill taking to the airwaves to announce “Nazism is an ideology of peace which, regrettably, has been perverted by a few fanatics like Hitler and Goebbels. But most storm troopers and SS men are fine follows – your friends and neighbors.”
For the first thousand years of its history – from the death of Mohammad to the 17th. century decline of the Ottoman empire, Islam was an expansionist force. For the next 300 years, as the West rose to preeminence, Islam receded. For the past four decades – fueled by Arab oil wealth, a surplus population in the Middle East, the waning of the West and the rise of more virulent strains of the faith (Shiism, Wahhabism, Sunni fundamentalism) – Islam is expanding once more.

Due to Moslem immigration and aggressive proselytizing, Islam is being exported to the West. Moslem populations are burgeoning throughout Western Europe. (In southern France, there are more mosques than churches.) In Judeo-Christian America, Islam is the fastest growing religion. It is also spreading down the coast of West Africa, through the Balkans (after Serbia, Macedonia is the next target) and up from Mindanao in the Philippines.

Wherever it comes, Islam brings its delightful customs – child marriages, female circumcisions, rabid hatred toward Christians and anti-Semitism, terrorism and support for terrorism and a virulent intolerance of other faiths.
Am I suggesting we declare war on over 1 billion million Moslems? The question is moot – Islam has declared war on the rest of the human race. When one side knows it’s at war and the other thinks peace and brotherhood prevail, guess who wins?

Ultimately, it is not about Jews in Israel, or Orthodox Serbs in Kosovo, or Hindus in Kashmir, or Maronite Catholics in Lebanon, or Christians in Sudan and Nigeria, but all of us. As Ben Franklin would have it – Either we will hang together, or surely we shall all hang separately.

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