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Another Lackawanna arrest -Businessman will be charged with sending at least $3 million to Yemen By MICHAEL BEEBE and DAN HERBECK News Staff Reporters 12/17/2002 Federal authorities today are expected to arrest a Lackawanna businessman with ties to the Lackawanna Six on charges that he illegally sent at least $3 million to Yemen over the last several years. The investigation was conducted by the Joint Terrorism Task Force of Western New York, but sources said investigators have been unable to trace any of the money to terrorist activities. "These transfers have been made illegally and (are) unreported," a law enforcement...

Queen City Cigarettes & Candy, a Clinton Street warehouse owned by food broker Mohamed T. Albanna, is one element of investigators' picture of a money-transmitting business that sent large sums to Yemen. A leader of Lackawanna's Yemeni-American community and two other men were in custody today on charges they operated an illegal money-transmitting business that sent funds from Western New York to Yemen. Mohamed T. Albanna, vice president of the American Muslim Council of Western New York and a frequent spokesman for the defendants known as the "Lackawanna Six," appeared before U.S. Magistrate Judge Hugh B. Scott on Tuesday after...

Second N.Y. Terror Suspect Pleads Guilty By CAROLYN THOMPSON .c The Associated Press BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) - A second of six Yemeni-American men accused of training at an al-Qaida camp in Afghanistan months before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks pleaded guilty Monday to charges he supported al-Qaida. Shafal Mosed, 24, entered the plea to a charge of knowingly and unlawfully providing and attempting to provide material resources to a foreign terrorist organization, namely al-Qaida. Under a plea deal, he agreed to cooperate with investigators. In exchange, prosecutors dropped one charge and agreed to seek a lighter sentence of eight years....

The U.S. citizen killed by a missile launched from a pilotless drone aircraft over Yemen was the ringleader of an alleged terrorist sleeper cell in Lackawanna, N.Y., administration officials said yesterday. Kamal Derwish, one of two unindicted co-conspirators in the Lackawanna case, died along with the intended target of the attack, senior al Qaeda leader Abu Ali al-Harithi, who is accused of masterminding the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole in which 17 sailors died. These two men and four others were traveling in a car outside the Yemeni capital of Sanaa when they were hit by a Hellfire...

Prosecuting Terror No Choice but Guilty Lackawanna Case Highlights Legal Tilt By Michael Powell Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, July 29, 2003; Page A01 First of two articles LACKAWANNA, N.Y. -- Even now, after the arrests and the anger and the world media spotlight, the mystery for neighbors in this old steel town remains this: Why would six of their young men so readily agree to plead guilty to terror charges, accepting long prison terms far from home? The reality appears to fall between such disbelief and talk of sleeper cells. Two men who were veterans of the war in...

SAN'A, Yemen — U.S. fighter jets have patrolled Yemen's northern border with Saudi Arabia as Yemeni forces hunt for Al Qaeda operatives, a security official said Saturday. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said U.S. jets were patrolling the border provinces of Marib and Jawf, strongholds of Muslim militants where the Al Qaeda terror group is believed to be active. The official said operations were designed to "tighten the grip on Al Qaeda suspects who are believed to be relocating in these tribal strongholds in the wake of the latest U.S. attack." Tribal leaders in the region said Americans...

Sought-after al-Qaida suspect leaves traces in Lackawanna By LOU MICHEL and JERRY ZREMSKI News Staff Reporters 9/22/2002 Kamal Derwish cut a mysterious figure on his travels through Lackawanna. People remember little about the plump, pious visitor from the Middle East who prayed with young people in the local mosque. And he's more mysterious than ever, now that he's believed to be on the run in Yemen, a fugitive from U.S. justice and alleged to be the ringleader of what federal officials describe as al-Qaida's "Buffalo cell." Derwish, a 29-year-old Buffalo native of Yemeni descent, served as the link between the...

Worldwide manhunt Former Lackawanna man is suspected of recruiting for sleeper cell By DAN HERBECK, MICHAEL BEEBE and JERRY ZREMSKI News Staff Reporters 9/17/2002 A worldwide manhunt is on for a former Lackawanna resident who is the suspected organizer and ringleader of the alleged al-Qaida "sleeper cell" that was broken up over the weekend. The Buffalo News has learned that authorities have identified Kamal Derwish, 29, as a prime suspect in the ongoing investigation. Derwish is a former resident of Holland Avenue, where one of the other "Buffalo Cell" defendants also lived. Allegations of terrorist-related activities against the former Lackawanna...