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Six Americans arrested on terrorism charges in US
Published on Tue, Jul 28, 2009 at 08:16, Updated on Wed, Jul 29, 2009 at 11:30 in World section
Tags: Terror Arrests, Us Terror Suspects , Raleigh
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Raleigh: To those they lived among, seven men accused of an intricate terrorism plot lived simply, quietly and kindly.
To neighbors and friends, Daniel Boyd was a father who stopped his work at noon each day for prayer.
Dylan Boyd, Daniel's son, was a college student at North Carolina State University who until last year worked as a clinical services tech at Wake Med Hospital in Raleigh.
Mohammad Omar Aly Hassan was a newlywed whose father owns a Raleigh car dealership.
To federal authorities, these men and four others plotted to kill themselves and others in the name of their religion. Their activities, tracked by FBI agents over three years and detailed in federal indictments released Monday, tell of an elaborate scheme hatched in a quiet Johnston County neighborhood and non-descript apartment complexes across Raleigh and Cary.
Those arrested include Daniel Patrick Boyd, 39, who was considered the ringleader of the group, and who fought with Afghan Muslims against the Soviets; Hysen Sherifi, 24; Anes Subasic, 33; Zakariya Boyd, 20; Dylan Boyd, 22; Mohammad Omar Aly Hassan, 22; and Ziyad Yaghi, 21.
All but one of the defendants were American citizens. Sherifi was a native of Kosovo and was living in the United States legally.
All seven men are charged with conspiring to provide support to terrorists and conspiring to murder, kidnap, maim and injure persons abroad.
Each is expected to have a detention hearing later this week. Until then, they are being held without bond. They have not been appointed lawyers. Efforts to reach their families were unsuccessful Monday night.
Federal authorities stormed the defendants' homes on Monday and arrested the men. Hours later, they stood before a federal magistrate and learned they could spend the rest of their lives in prison if found guilty of the charges against them. At nightfall, federal agents continued to search their homes, bringing several vans and dozens of agents to their quiet neighborhoods.
News of their arrests rattled those they had befriended.
"If he's a terrorist, he's the nicest terrorist I've ever met in my life," said Charles Casale, a neighbor to Boyd and his sons who often chatted with them. Casale said the senior Boyd often invited him and his wife to visit. When the two chatted near the pond that separated their properties, Boyd would excuse himself to pray when the sun reached its noon-day height.
Federal documents released Monday detail a half-dozen trips members of the group made to Israel and Pakistan. Investigators believe the men meant to wage a violent jihad, killing themselves and others in bombings meant to defend Muslims from oppression. All failed, for reasons not specified in federal documents.
Investigators say the Boyds stockpiled military-style weapons and trained at a rural property in Caswell County, on the Virginia border north of Alamance and Orange counties. They say Daniel Boyd split from his mainstream mosque in Raleigh this year over "ideological differences," according to the indictment.
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Dangerous are the times that we live in. The arrests highlight the criticality of intelligence gathering and laws that preempt
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For the Americans anyone caught in America is a Terrorist but persons like Kasab and the laskar-e-Taiba who carry out
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Dear Sir
Terrorism is a world wide killing phenomena.It is better that immediately this phenomena is cut off or
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