Americans Detained in Pakistan Found to Have al Qaeda Links

By ZAHID HUSSAIN

ISLAMABAD -- Five young Americans detained in eastern Pakistan had developed contacts with al Qaeda operatives through the Internet and were on their way to North Waziristan to join a militant training camp, said a senior intelligence official here.

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Associated Press

Five Americans were arrested in Sargodha, Pakistan, at the house (pictured) of an activist of Jaish-e-Mohammed, an outlawed Pakistani militant outfit with known links to the Taliban and al Qaeda.

All of them -- students in their 20s from northern Virginia -- were arrested this week in the garrison town of Sargodha at the house of an activist of Jaish-e-Mohammed, an outlawed Pakistani militant outfit with known links to the Taliban and al Qaeda.

The suspects had arrived in Pakistan last month. They are being interrogated by Pakistani intelligence agencies and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the intelligence official said.
The intelligence official said that information gleaned from their laptop computers and other material recovered from the suspects established their links with the militant network operating from the lawless tribal region bordering Afghanistan.
He said the men came in contact with al Qaeda through its local operatives in Pakistan. Police have also seized some jihadist literature from the house where they were arrested.
"We watched them for one and a half days and then arrested them," Usman Anwar, police chief of Sargodha, told reporters. He said they admitted that they had come to Pakistan with the intention of joining jihad. Police also arrested an employee of the federal highway department.
A U.S. official briefed on the probe said that initial evidence and interviews collected by investigators indicate the men were seeking to join a "jihadist operation against U.S. soldiers," tough it's unclear if their goal was to attack troops in Afghanistan.
A Pakistani security official said the five men were detained Monday. They had flown to Karachi on Nov. 30 and then traveled to Lahore on Dec. 5, and then on to Sargodha, he said. Investigations are under way and no charges have been filed against them, he said.
Analysts said the latest arrests gave credence to the fears that Pakistan has become the main hub of global al Qaeda, threatening the security of the U.S., Britain and other Western countries. The arrests are likely to fan worries in Western countries that the sons of immigrants from Muslim countries are being drawn to violent Islamist militancy, a process made easier by the Internet.
Pakistan is home to a number of militant groups waging a violent struggle against the government, mostly in the northwest. They have developed close links with al Qaeda.
Two of the men arrested were of Pakistani origin while the other three have origins in Egypt, Eritrea and Ethiopia. They are all naturalized Americans. Analysts said the arrests showed how the appeal of al Qaeda has penetrated some young Muslims in America and other Western countries.
"Al Qaeda is very successful in recruiting in the Muslim diaspora particularly among Pakistanis," said Raffat Hussain, a professor in the department of strategic studies at Quad-e-Azam University in Islamabad. "Its target is the young generation which feels alienated by the perceived repression of Muslims across the world."
Scores of radical Muslims from the West are believed to have received training in al Qaeda camps in recent years and have now been fighting on both sides of the border Afghanistan and Pakistan border. In September, Pakistani security forces arrested Mehdi-Muhammed Ghezali, a Swedish national and a former Guantanamo Bay prisoner, who was trying to go to Waziristan to join al Qaeda.
The traffic of foreign fighters has slowed because of a Pakistani military offensive in South Waziristan and some other tribal regions, but they are still trickling in. A senior intelligence official said many British and German citizens have joined the militants fighting in Afghanistan. Most of the new militants are Germans of Turkish origin, the security official said.