Off topic -- NYT article on Lackawanna NY suspects.
September 15, 2002
Suspects Said to Be Awaiting Order to Attack in U.S.
By PHILIP SHENON
WASHINGTON, Sept. 14 - Five Arab-American men charged today
with operating an active Al Qaeda terrorist cell in western
New York received weapons training in Afghanistan in the
summer of 2001 and had been sent back to the United States
to await the order for an attack, federal law enforcement
officials said today.
The suspects, all of them born in the United States and of
Yemeni descent, were arraigned today in Buffalo on federal
charges of providing "material support" to terrorists.
They were arrested on Friday night in raids on their homes
and businesses in Lackawanna, a Buffalo suburb that has a
large Yemeni community and where the suspects lived within
a few blocks of one another. Their families and neighbors
there defended the men today. [Page 20]
Federal officials said the arrests in New York suggested
that, for the first time since the Sept. 11 attacks, the
Justice Department may have detected an active Qaeda
terrorist cell in the United States.
The Justice Department acknowledged, however, that it had
no evidence to suggest that any attack by the group was
imminent. The government did not allege today that the men
had weapons in their possession or that they had
participated in any violent act.
"We have not seen any plans of an imminent attack in
western New York or elsewhere in the United States," the
F.B.I. director, Robert S. Mueller III, said in announcing
the charges. But he added, "We do not fully know the
intentions of those who are charged today."
At a news conference in Washington, Deputy Attorney General
Larry D. Thompson said the disruption of a "Qaeda-trained
terrorist cell on American soil" was an important victory
for the United States in combatting terrorism. "American
citizens who see fit to aid and abet America's enemies will
face the full force of America's justice," he said.
A federal magistrate in Buffalo entered a not-guilty plea
today on behalf of the five men, who are all in their 20's,
and ordered them detained until a hearing on Wednesday.
A criminal complaint released by the F.B.I. shows that the
government believes three other men from Lackawanna
received terrorist training in Afghanistan last year. The
complaint identified them as "uncharged co-conspirators"
and said they were now believed to be living outside the
United States, at least two of them in Yemen.
A mostly impoverished Muslim nation of 17 million people
that borders Saudi Arabia, Yemen has proved a fertile
recruiting ground for Osama bin Laden's terrorist network.
On Friday, American officials confirmed the capture in
Pakistan of Ramzi bin al-Shibh, a Yemeni who, officials
said, served as a paymaster for the Sept. 11 terrorism
attacks.
Federal officials said they have no evidence to suggest
that the five men in custody in western New York had any
tie to the Sept. 11 attacks.
The criminal complaint in their case focuses on an
accusation that they provided "material support" to Al
Qaeda by receiving training from the terrorist group in the
summer of last year.
They are accused of attending a terrorist training camp in
Afghanistan known as Al Farouk, the same camp that was
attended - at about the same time - by John Walker Lindh,
the young Californian who pleaded guilty last summer to
taking up arms against the United States with the army of
the Taliban.
As part of his plea agreement, Mr. Lindh agreed to
cooperate with the government in other terrorism
investigations. Law-enforcement officials joined with Mr.
Lindh's lawyers in refusing to comment today on whether he
led investigators to the men arrested in western New York.
"I can say that the debriefings continue," said George C.
Harris, one of Mr. Lindh's lawyers, in a telephone
interview. "He's being absolutely, fully cooperative."
Federal law-enforcement officials said that they opened
their investigation in Lackawanna, an old steel town on the
southern border of Buffalo, after receiving information
from within the area's Muslim community months ago that
people loyal to Al Qaeda might be living among them.
But the criminal complaint shows that it was only last
week, after months of denials by the suspects, that two men
accused of involvement in the terrorist cell broke down in
interrogations and acknowledged to the F.B.I. that they had
attended the Afghanistan camp.
One of the men, Sahim A. Alwan, 29, was among the group
arrested on Friday.
According to the complaint, Mr. Alwan confessed in an
interview on Thursday that he had gone to the training camp
with six other men from Lackawanna last year, and that they
had received training in the use of firearms and
antiaircraft guns, along with lectures on "jihad (holy
war), prayers and justification for using suicide as a
weapon."
In previous interviews with the F.B.I., the complaint said,
Mr. Alwan had insisted that he had traveled last year only
as far as Pakistan, where he said he had received religious
training.
According to the complaint, he said that during the
seven-week training session in Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden
visited the camp, which was near the former Taliban
stronghold of Kandahar, and "gave a speech about the
alliance of the Islamic jihad and Al Qaeda, espousing
anti-United States and anti-Israel statements."
The complaint said that the other man from Lackawanna who
confessed last week, identified only as "uncharged
co-conspirator C," had been interviewed by an F.B.I. agent
on Wednesday somewhere "outside the United States" and has
also acknowledged terrorist training.
He reported, it said, that "he was trained on the use of
the Kalashinkov assault rifle, handguns and long-range
rifles" and that another of the men from western New York
was trained in "heavy artillery."
Federal officials said it was the two confessions that led
them to move on Friday to arrest Mr. Alwan and the four
others from Lackawanna, identified as Yahya Goba, 25, who
is unemployed; Shafal A. Mosed, a 24-year-old employee for
a credit company; Yasein A. Taher, 24, who is unemployed;
and Faysal H. Galab, 26, whose recent work history was not
disclosed.
The men arrived for their court hearing in casual street
clothes, their hands and feet shackled. They said little
beyond yes or no in somber, quiet voices to the questions
of Magistrate H. Kenneth Schroeder, who asked the men about
their ability to pay for defense lawyers.
Law-enforcement officials said that the recent developments
in the Lackawanna investigation were a factor in the
government's announcement on Tuesday that it had raised the
national terrorism alert level to "orange," signifying a
high risk of a terrorist attack.
At the news conference today, however, Mr. Thompson
cautioned that "the elevation of our status alert was made
after considering a number of factors" and that the
discovery of the Lackawanna cell had "not specifically" led
to the new terrorism alert.
Mr. Thompson and other officials today repeatedly praised
the cooperation received from American Muslims in western
New York and elsewhere in the search for terrorists who may
be in the United States.
"I want to thank the Muslim community of Buffalo for their
extraordinary cooperation," Mr. Thompson said, offering no
details on the nature of that cooperation.
The five men were charged with violating a federal statute
that makes it a crime to provide "material support" to a
designated foreign terrorist organization like Al Qaeda.
In 1996, when the law was passed, Congress broadly defined
material support to include almost anything of value except
for medicine or religious materials - a list that included
the provision of "personnel" or "training" to a foreign
terrorist organization. If convicted, each of the men would
face up to 15 years in prison.
Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company. |
