Pakistan charges Va.-area men; U.S. faces more domestic terror threats

By Joshua Wilwohl / josh@theklaxon.com / 03.17.2010

Updated on: 03.17.10 at 1:34 pm

Sargodha Police Department

Pakistan has made the formal move to charge five Americans with terrorism.

The men, all Muslims from the Virginia area, allegedly contacted militants over the Internet via Facebook and YouTube. All pleaded not guilty.

The five went missing in November and led a frantic chill down the FBI’s spine as their parents came forward to inform authorities of a farewell video that showed scenes of war and rants that Muslims must be defended.

The defense attorney for the young men, ages 18-25, plans to show during the March 31 trial that the men were heading to Afghanistan with no plans to stage attacks.

Naeem Baig, vice president for public affairs and the executive director for the Council of Social Justice at the Islamic Circle of North America, an organization linked to the five men, informed The Klaxon in January that ICNA has no affiliation to the five’s activities.

“ICNA is an American Muslim organization and we don’t have ties with any kind of organization outside the U.S.,” he said.

Baig said in January that ICNA did have contact with the five men—Umar Farooq, Waqar Khan, Ahmed Minni, Aman Hassan Yemer and Ramy Zamzam—before they left for Pakistan.

“We won’t say we don’t know them,” said Baig. “These five young men were from the area (Washington, D.C.) and ICNA has a center in that area where they were regular participants in the prayers.”

This case furthers exemplifies the growing problem of domestic terrorism in the U.S.

In the past six months, the claims made by the U.S. government regarding this very topic—and the cases that have evolved—have been unnerving to say the least.

In September, Najibullah Zazi was arrested after allegedly driving to New York with plans to bomb the city’s subway system.

In November, five Virgnia-area men go missing to allegedly plan “jihad,” according to reports. Then, in the same month, U.S. Army Maj. Nidal Hassan shoots dead 13 at Fort Hood.

Meanwhile, the FBI and authorities in Minneapolis acknowledge young men have been recruited by al-Shabaab and 14 are charged on terror-related activities.

In December, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab attempted to blow up a Detroit-bound airline on Christmas Day. He met with Anwar al-Awlaki, an imam in Yemen with ties to mosques in the U.S.

Then, earlier in this year, the Obama Administration has said that they have no idea how many U.S. citizens have traveled to Middle East countries for school studies, disappeared from view and still hold legal passports.

In March, Colleen LaRose, aka “Jihad Jane,” was arrested after spending almost a year online, collaborating with a terrorist advisor on an assassination plot with al-Qaeda in Switzerland.

Also this month, the fiasco surrounding Adam Gadhan’s arrest—we have him, we don’t—sparked controversy with his ties back to California. And then a Colorado-based woman was held in Ireland on terror-related activities. (She later was released.)

To someone not familiar with terrorism, it seems lately there has been too much volatile activity.

Brian Michael Jenkins, a senior adviser to the president of the RAND corporation, a nonprofit that helps improve policy and decision-making through research and analysis, wrote in an op-ed to AOL News, “Keep in mind … what hasn’t happened since 9/11. There’s been no sustained jihadist terrorist campaign in the United States. The local Muslim community has rejected overwhelmingly its appeals and has actively intervened to dissuade those with more radical tendencies from violence. Domestic intelligence efforts have been expanded and improved and, thus far, have succeeded in thwarting all but two attacks. This has contributed to a deterrent effect.”

While this might be true, it’s still not a surety to the American people.

The fact that these five men in Pakistan now formally are charged is somewhat of a relief to most, but it’s also a reality to many that this is a growing trend.

As a nation, the government must show they are in a fight they can win. This is not just at the federal level, but also at the state and local level—and even lies with every citizen.

The more vigilant people become and the more courage they have to speak up and say something, the better our chances of avoiding the consequences of saying nothing at all.

After all, what if the parents of Farooq, Khan, Minni, Yemer and Zamzam remained silent? The U.S. is most likely lucky it didn’t have to investigate that answer.