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Speaking of sleeper cells.....

UPSTATE N.Y. MAN ARRESTED FOR PLOTTING TO HELP TERRORISTS

POSTED: 8:00 pm EST November 9, 2004

EL PASO, Texas -- A 19-year-old man accused of planning to supply a Somalian terrorist group with night vision goggles and bullet proof vests has been arrested crossing into El Paso from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.

Mark Robert Walker, of surburban Rochester, N.Y., is charged with providing support or resources to a foreign terrorist organization, which carries a maximum sentence of 15 years, said Shana Jones, spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Western District of Texas.

A message seeking comment left with the public defender assigned to Walker's case wasn't immediately returned on Tuesday.

Walker was apprehended at 7:15 a.m. Saturday by a U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent at the Paso del Norte Bridge based on an alert describing him and his car, said customs spokesman Roger Maier.

Later Saturday, Walker told federal law enforcement officials he planned to purchase night vision goggles and bullet proof vests with $2,100 in one-hundred-dollar bills he was carrying, according to a criminal complaint filed Monday in U.S. District Court.

The complaint says Walker told agents he would give the items to fighters with Ittihad al Islamiya and other groups that want an Islamic government in Somalia. Ittihad al Islamiya has been designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S. State and Treasury departments.

Federal officials were made aware of Walker after his roommate at Wyoming Technical Institute in Laramie, Wyo., told police that Walker was using a computer to communicate with terrorist groups on the Internet, according to the complaint.

After the roommate confronted Walker in October, Walker allegedly fled and hadn't been in contact with his family since then.

The school, which specializes in automotive and diesel technology education, referred calls to its corporate office in Washington, D.C., where messages left on an answering machine late Tuesday were not immediately returned.

Walker allegedly used the screen name "Abdullah," and posted communications stating that he hated the U.S. government and planned to travel to Somalia to fight, information in the complaint said.

Several TV camera crews staked out the Walker family home, a two-story colonial located on a leafy street in the Rochester suburb of Irondequoit, Tuesday night. Although the lights were on inside, no one answered the door when a reporter rang the bell.

According to neighbor Don Milton, the Walker family moved to upstate New York from Washington state this past summer. Milton said he saw Walker mowing the lawn on several occasions.

"The short time I've known them, they were very pleasant. I'm just completely baffled," said Milton, a 63-year-old real-estate consultant. "It's a shame. I feel sorry for the family."

Jones said Walker is scheduled for a Friday detention hearing. On Tuesday, he was being held without bond in the El Paso County Detention Facility.

http://www.wnbc.com/news/3905194/detail.html