"Some of my closest friends are moslems." - 1st. Lt. Fisher, Company Commander, Hd-10-3, Ft. Ord, Ca, 1959.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/bomb174.htm
USA Today
05/20/99- Updated 05:15 PM ET
Ex-Army sergeant linked to bin Laden
NEW YORK (AP) - A former Army sergeant has been indicted on federal charges that he trained members of Osama bin Laden's terrorist organization and Islamic militants who were implicated in the World Trade Center bombing.
Ali Mohamed, 46, a native of Egypt who left the Army in 1989, was added to a broad conspiracy case that includes bin Laden, the suspected architect of last summer's bombings of the U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
Mohamed has been jailed in New York since he was arrested Sept. 11 on a sealed complaint in federal court in Manhattan. A message left Wednesday with Mohamed's lawyer, James Roth, was not immediately returned.
Mohamed, a former Egyptian military officer, moved to the United States in 1985 and became a permanent resident. He was honorably discharged from the Army in 1989 after serving three years at the Special Forces base in Fort Bragg, N.C.
While in the U.S. military, Mohamed taught soldiers in the special forces about Muslim culture. Prosecutors say he later lent his military expertise to terrorists intent on destroying the United States to retaliate for its support of Israel and involvement in the Middle East.
The indictment said Mohamed trained members of bin Laden's al Qaeda terrorist organization and helped move bin Laden from Pakistan to Sudan in 1991. He also allegedly discussed as early as 1993 with other members of al Qaeda how to attack the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi and other Israeli, British and French targets in Kenya.
Mohamed also allegedly provided training to a group of Islamic militants who were later implicated in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and in a plot to blow up New York City landmarks.
Court records say that while Mohamed was in the Army, he gave tapes and books on military techniques and weapons to a group of young men who wanted to help Afghan rebels.
Some of the materials were later recovered from the apartment of El Sayyid Nosair, the Egyptian immigrant convicted of conspiracy in the killing of Jewish Defense League founder Rabbi Meir Kahane in 1990.
The Kahane killing was once believed to be an isolated attack, but investigators now see it as the start of a U.S. terrorism campaign by Islamic fundamentalists.