A new poster distributed by the US Army shows different images of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian said to be leading an al-Qaeda-affiliated terror group operating in Iraq (news - web sites). The US State Department said it had doubled to 10 million dollars the reward for information leading to Zarqawi's capture.(AFP/HO)
By REBECCA COOK, Associated Press Writer
FORT LEWIS, Wash. - A National Guardsman was arrested Thursday and charged by the Army with trying to provide information to the al-Qaida terrorist network, a federal law enforcement official said.
The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told The Associated Press that Spc. Ryan G. Anderson was charged with "aiding the enemy by wrongfully attempting to communicate and give intelligence to the al-Qaida terrorist network."
It was not immediately known what information Anderson allegedly provided.
Anderson was being held at Fort Lewis, an Army base near Tacoma.
A message left with the Lt. Col. Stephen Barger at Fort Lewis was not immediately returned Thursday. Base spokesman Joe Hitt said he was not aware of the report, and messages left with Army officials at the Pentagon were not immediately returned.
Anderson, 26, is a tank crew member from the National Guard's 81st Armor Brigade, a 4,000-member unit set to depart for Iraq for a one-year deployment.
Washington State University spokeswoman Charleen Taylor said Anderson was a 2002 graduate with a degree in military history with an emphasis on the Middle East.
Anderson converted to Islam five years ago, the Everett Herald reported last week. He graduated from Everett's Cascade High School in 1995.
The brigade has been training at Fort Lewis since November. Eighty percent of the soldiers — 3,200 — are from Washington state, and 1,000 are from guard units in California and Minnesota.
It includes two tank battalions, a mechanized infantry battalion, engineers, support troops, artillery and an intelligence company.
The brigade's Iraqi mission is the biggest deployment for the Washington Army National Guard since World War II.