Posted on 06/28/2003 9:53:04 AM PDT by knighthawk
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.
Lashkar-e-Taeba was banned by President Musharraf and its assets were frozen in January of last year.
The US State Department says that Lashkar-e-Taiba is the military wing of Markaz ud-Daoua Wal-Irshad (MDI), a strongly anti-American group founded in 1989, which follows the fundamentalist Wahhab strain of the Sunni Muslim faith.
According to the State Department, an associate of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was found in a Lashkar-e-Taeba hideout in March 2002 which suggested that some members of the group help Al-Qaeda.
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