US citizen of Bangladesh origin indicted for jihad

Added: (Fri Jul 21 2006)

Pressbox (Press Release) - A federal grand jury indicted two US citizens of Bangladesh and Pakistan origins Wednesday on charges of plotting ‘violent jihad’ and undergoing paramilitary training in north-west Georgia to prepare themselves for terrorist acts.
Reuters reports FBI officials in April arrested Ehsanul Islam Sadequee, born in 1986 in Bangladesh. He was added to the indictment. Syed Haris Ahmed, 21, born in Pakistan and a student at Georgia Tech, was arrested in March.
They previously were accused of travelling to Canada last year to meet with Islamic extremists to discuss ‘strategic locations in the United States suitable for a terrorist strike,’ including military bases and oil refineries, according to prosecutors.
‘The defendants used multiple e-mail addresses, coded language, and encrypted materials; attempted to detect and evade surveillance; made false statements to federal agents; and otherwise used various means and methods to conceal their communications,’ the Atlanta, Georgia district court indictment said.
Another report from AFP says both the men developed contacts with other supporters of jihad, travelling to Toronto, Canada, and made video clips of ‘potential terrorist targets’ in Washington including the US Capital and the headquarters of the World Bank, and sharing the recordings with another alleged terrorist based in Great Britain, the indictment said.
‘Ahmed, Sadequee and another person known to the Grand Jury engaged in physical and rudimentary paramilitary training including activities with paintball guns in north-western Georgia,’ according to the indictment filed at Atlanta district court.
It said Ahmed travelled to Pakistan to get paramilitary and religious training with the aim of fighting in Kashmir, while Sadequee went to Bangladesh in part to support jihad.
The case is one of several in which US justice officials have prosecuted suspects whose alleged plots were in their very early stages.
US attorney David Nahmias defended the validity of making arrests and charges before a specific plot has been hatched.
‘The indictment does not allege that these defendants had proceeded to a point that they posed an imminent threat to the United States. But in today’s world we no longer wait until a bomb is built and ready to explode,’ he said in a statement.
An attorney for Ahmed, Jack Martin, and one for Sadequee, Douglas Morris, did not immediately return calls Wednesday seeking comment.
Martin has said investigators used Ahmed’s devotion to Islam to get him to talk and reneged on a promise not to arrest him if he told the truth. A judge is considering a request by Martin to suppress statements Ahmed made to the FBI or force the government to abide by the alleged agreement not to prosecute him.