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Buffalo men charged with aiding terrorists
BUFFALO, New York (CNN) -- Five men arrested Friday night in a raid on an apartment complex in a Buffalo, New York, suburb were indicted on charges of providing material support to terrorists, the Justice Department announced Saturday. Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson said the men all trained at an al Qaeda camp in Afghanistan and said the arrests "disrupted an al Qaeda-trained terrorist cell on American soil." He said John Walker Lindh, the so-called American Taliban, trained at the same camp. The men were arraigned Saturday afternoon in a Buffalo federal courthouse. FBI agents arrested the five men -- all U.S. citizens -- in a raid on an apartment building in Lackawanna, a city of 20,000 people just south of Buffalo, arresting suspects and carrying off boxes of evidence. If convicted of the charges, the men could face up to 15 years in prison.
FBI Director Robert Mueller said there was no evidence that the men were planning any attacks. "We do not fully know the intentions of those charged today," Mueller said. Earlier, Mayor John Kuryak said he had been informed about six months ago that federal officials were investigating possible terrorists in his city. Kuryak said his first reaction upon hearing the news was "disbelief." "We just want to reassure everybody in the city that they're safe," he said. Thompson and Mueller said that members of Lackawanna's Muslim community provided "extraordinary cooperation" to their investigation. The bust comes on the heels of the capture of Ramzi Binalshibh, one of the al Qaeda operatives most wanted by the U.S. government. Pakistani officials said they are questioning the Yemeni-born Binalshibh. (Full story) Binalshibh recently acknowledged playing a role in the planning of the September 11 terrorist hijackings. In an audio message played Thursday on the Arabic news network Al-Jazeera, Binalshibh said he had hoped to be one of the hijackers but could not obtain an entry visa into the United States. (Full story) |
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