Free Republic

A former D.C. cab driver pleaded guilty today to conspiring to support a Pakistani group on the U.S. terrorism list by attending one of its training camps, officials said. Mahmud Faruq Brent, of Gwynn Oak, a Baltimore suburb, was arrested in 2005. He had been scheduled to go on trial on April 24 along with two New Yorkers and a Florida doctor. During a hearing in U.S. federal court in Manhattan, Brent acknowledged that he attended a Lashkar-e-Taiba training camp in 2002, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney's office in New York. The Islamic guerrilla group is fighting...

NEW YORK (AP) - A bookstore owner and a jazz musician agreed soon after the Sept. 11 attacks to try to help terrorists in Afghanistan buy weapons and communications equipment to fight American soldiers, the government charged Wednesday. Assistant U.S. Attorney Victor Hou said Abdulrahman Farhane, 51, and the musician, Tarik Shah, 42, spoke with an FBI informant about the plot in Farhane's bookstore in December 2001 "while the ruins of 9/11 were still smoldering." The prosecutor asked that Farhane be held without bail on charges of conspiring to provide material support to terrorists and trying to cover up his...

IN THE 5300 block of Gwynn Oak Ave., which is right here in America, life goes on. The roofers are back on the roof, the neighbors are mingling on the sidewalk, and a mailman is approaching the home rented by Mahmud Faruq Brent, who has just been accused of connections to international terrorism. ....You want a better picture of Americana, you can't find it anywhere - ...The neighborhood still feels like Norman Rockwell could comfortably pull out his paintbrushes here....In front of one, the Greater Remnant Church of God in Christ, a sign declares: "Caution. Slow down. God is at...

The federal charges lodged this week against Mahmud F. Brent read like a thriller, filled with tales of a clandestine FBI sting operation in a Maryland hotel room, terrorism training camps in the mountains of Pakistan and shadowy connections to al-Qaida. .....According to court papers, Brent, a 30-year-old West Baltimore man who drove a cab in Washington, conspired to help the armed wing of Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistan-based religious organization labeled a terrorist group by the U.S. government. Brent, a U.S. citizen, was arrested in Orange, N.J., outside Newark on Thursday afternoon and brought to New York. About the same time,...

A Maryland man was charged with conspiracy to help a terrorist organization after he boasted that he went to Pakistan, attended terrorist training camps and agreed to provide whatever assistance was necessary, prosecutors said Thursday. Mahmud Faruq Brent, of Gwynn Oak, Md., was charged after a New York musician arrested on similar charges in May agreed to meet with him and let the FBI record the encounter, according to a joint release by federal prosecutors, the FBI and New York police. Brent was charged in a criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan with conspiracy to provide material...

BALTIMORE -- Federal prosecutors on Thursday charged a Maryland man with conspiracy to provide information to terrorists. The U.S. Attorney's Office of the Southern District of New York said Thursday afternoon that Mahmud Faruq Brent, also known as Mahmud Al Mutazzim, is in federal custody in New York. He was arrested Thursday in Newark, N.J. Brent, of Baltimore, faces charges of conspiring to provide resources to Lashkar-e-Taiba, which has been linked to bombings in India, from 2001 through the current year. Federal authorities, along with the Baltimore Joint Terrorism Task Force, searched Brent's northwest Baltimore residence following the arrest. Federal...

NEW YORK (AP) - A Maryland man was charged with conspiring to help a terrorist organization after describing the time he spent at a terrorist training camp in Pakistan as "one of the better decisions in my life," prosecutors said Thursday. Mahmud Faruq Brent, of Gwynn Oak, Md., allegedly boasted that he had agreed to provide whatever assistance was necessary. Authorities began investigating Brent after they found an address book with telephone numbers for him when they arrested Tarik Shah, 42, of New York. Shah pleaded not guilty to terrorism charges earlier this summer. Brent was charged in a criminal...

A Maryland man was charged with conspiring to help a terrorist organization after describing the time he spent at a terrorist training camp in Pakistan as "one of the better decisions in my life," prosecutors said Thursday. Mahmud Faruq Brent, of Gwynn Oak, Md., allegedly boasted that he had agreed to provide whatever assistance was necessary. Authorities began investigating Brent after they found an address book with telephone numbers for him when they arrested Tarik Shah, 42, of New York. Shah pleaded not guilty to terrorism charges earlier this summer. Brent was charged in a criminal complaint filed in federal...