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Home Front: WoT

Georgia student charged with supporting terror group

2006-04-21

Hat tip Michelle Malkin.

A 21-year-old Georgia Tech student taken into federal custody last month has been charged with giving "material support" to a terrorist organization, according to a federal indictment unsealed Thursday.

Georgia Tech student, Joe? Bubba?

The student, Syed Haris Ahmed, a mechanical engineering major who had become increasingly religious in his Islamic faith, was arrested March 23 by the FBI.

Tap, tap....nope

Syed Ahmed, 21, was charged with helping a terrorist group. The FBI believes he attended a training camp in Pakistan last year, sources say. He was in ~~madrassa~~ religious school there, his family says.

But we repeat ourselves.

"This is the first international terrorism charge ever filed in Georgia," said U.S. Attorney David Nahmias shortly after unsealing the indictment "The charge against Mr. Ahmed is serious and involves national security and will be prosecuted with that in mind." Authorities declined to provide details about the charges but said they had investigated Ahmed for about a year.

Jack Martin, Ahmed's court-appointed lawyer, refused to comment on the case. Ahmed's family has rejected the suggestion that the student has been involved in terrorism.

"No, no! Certainly not!"

On Wednesday, Ahmed appeared before U.S. Magistrate Joel Feldman and pleaded not guilty, prosecutors said Thursday. Ahmed was ordered to be held in custody pending trial. Ahmed was taken into custody, his family said, apparently because authorities suspect a videotape he made of a building may have been related to terrorism.

Casing the joint, was he?

Ahmed's family immigrated from Pakistan in 1997 and are now U.S. citizens living in Dawsonville. Family members said agents confiscated computer hard drives and data CDs from their home last month. Ahmed told his family that authorities found a video on the Internet and apparently traced it to him. The video was of a building and was perhaps made during a trip with friends. Ahmed's family members said they did not know the location of the building or when the tape was made.

Second man arrested
In a separate case that may be related, a 19-year-old Roswell man was arrested Monday in Bangladesh. Ehsanul Islam Sadequee was arrested by Bengali authorities after at least eight months of federal investigation of him and his family, his sister, Sharmin Sadequee, said Thursday. Federal authorities would not confirm the arrest. Authorities also refused to confirm Ahmed's arrest before Thursday.

Sharmin Sadequee said the family had immigrated from Bangladesh and lived in Atlanta since 1988. Ehsanul Sadequee was born in Fairfax, Va., and is a U.S. citizen, although he was home schooled and attended a British school in Bangladesh from 2001 to 2004.

A British boarding school in Bangladesh?

Federal authorities would not say what charges Ehsanul Sadequee faces or even confirm he is in custody.

Sharmin Sadequee said her brother was briefly detained last August at Kennedy International Airport in New York when he was flying to Bangladesh to get married. Sharmin Sadequee said her family has been interviewed by authorities several times since. Sadequee, who spoke to the newspaper from her home in Michigan, said her family received a call in mid-March from a young man saying he was an acquaintance of her brother and that he had been questioned four times by the FBI about him. Sharmin Sadequee knew the man only by his nickname and had met him at Al-Farooq Masjid, the mosque just north of Georgia Tech. She said the man she met resembled Syed Haris Ahmed, the Georgia Tech student, after seeing his photo on The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Web site.

There's a pretty good connection.

Sadequee called the man this week after her brother was arrested. His cellphone had been disconnected. Sadequee said one of the family encounters with authorities was in December when U.S. immigration agents arrested her mother at the family home in Roswell on immigration violation charges. Her mother was released and the case is ongoing, Sadequee said.

Momma just overstayed her visa or is she part of the gunpowder plot?

Sadequee also said FBI agents came to the Roswell home in September, saying they were investigating the bankruptcy of a travel agency where their older brother, Amimul Sadequee, had purchased a ticket. "Then they asked how many computers do you have and does your son [Amimul] have a laptop?" said Sharmin Sadequee, who was reviewing notes the family had accumulated about the visits. "We wondered why they are asking about computers when they were investigating a ticket and a bankruptcy?"

CNN reported Thursday that Ehsanul Sadequee had been handed over to the FBI and placed on a plane to New York, where he is expected to face charges in U.S. District Court.

Posted by:Steve White

#16 This is getting a LOT of press here in "the ATL." Interesting the links there. ICE is stepping up here too. Arrested some 44 Mexicans yesterday in DeKalb County (home to Cynthia Moonbat McKinney). Then this hits the press today.

I do remember stories of a couple of buildings being cased in downtown Atlanta for 9/11. Never figured out which ones exactly, but one of the largest (if not the largest) Federal buildings in the U.S. (outside of D.C.) is where I work downtown. Add to that, that Mohammed Atta and several other 9/11 goons trained (flight training) here in suburban Atlanta (Gwinnett airport) before 9/11, and something's rotten in Denmark. I pray these are the only ones involved, but my gut tells me no. My punishment? Release the lil' punk back into "normal life" in Dawsonville (about 1 hour north of Atlanta), and all the "mountain men" up there will take care of the rest for us.

Posted by: BA 2006-04-21 23:07

#15 However, Ahmed, who had been under federal surveillance since March 2005, told authorities that he traveled with Sadequee to Canada and stayed with another unnamed co-conspirator, court papers said. ...
"Ahmed further explained that during some of these meetings, he, Sadequee and the others discussed strategic locations in the United States suitable for a terrorist strike, to include oil refineries and military bases. They also plotted how to disable the Global Positioning System in an effort to disrupt military and commercial communications and traffic.

So have the Mounties got their "Canadians"?

Posted by: ed 2006-04-21 22:47

#14 did you get a lucky hat?

Posted by: Frank G 2006-04-21 18:59

#13 Pick up that post hole digger and Follow me
I worked with a PhD for 3 summers building I-10 thru N Florida. White Construction. It's seared, seared into my brain.

Posted by: 6 2006-04-21 17:16

#12 "Community service"

Here are your leather gloves, staple apron, and fencing tool. Pick up that post hole digger and Follow me, we're headed to the border.

Posted by: Besoeker 2006-04-21 16:46

#11 Some of them are calling for a day of community service (yeah, right) instead of the one-day economic boycott that they planned for 1 May.

Maybe their community service could involve turning in law-breakers. Like themselves.

Hell, here's a deal: anyone who turns themselves in gets to keep title to any property they've gained while in the US illegally, but has to go home and get in line for legal immigration. Anyone who's caught gets sent home and can never enter the US again. Being caught a second time gets you 10 years in prison, third time 20, fourth time -- life.

Posted by: Rob Crawford 2006-04-21 13:22

#10 (I'm not an American)

I have my doubts about that. Being American is a mental issue. Plenty who live here aren't and plenty who don't are. That's why immigration actually renews the US when it brings in those wh dream the American dream.

Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2006-04-21 09:57

#9 wxjames, no, not really. I remember last year when the Minutemen started showing up on Arizona's border....and then magically, they found some Border Patrol agents to deploy in an area that they had historically understaffed.

Even the illegal alien groups are starting to get the hint that their support in the real world isn't what they thought it would be. Some of them are calling for a day of community service (yeah, right) instead of the one-day economic boycott that they planned for 1 May.

Posted by: Desert Blondie 2006-04-21 09:50

#8 TW, that's what I love about America. It works from the bottom up.

(I'm not an American)

Posted by: phil_b 2006-04-21 09:36

#7 Yeah, ain't it sweet how they help out? :)

Posted by: Cheremble Pholuck9542 2006-04-21 09:31

#6 Odd how ICE starts doing it's job just after the senate has been bombarded with thousands, even millions of faxes, phone calls, letters, and visits demanding the borders be closed. Also odd that the shithead democrats are still talking amnesty. Also odd that the shithead congress doesn't get the message to CLOSE THE BORDER NOW.
NOW !

And on the stupid side, the illegals march in the street showing how arrogant they are and how numerous they are to anyone who was unaware of those facts. And, once again, the STUPID democrats address the march. And the STUPID MSM makes a big deal out of these displays.

Posted by: wxjames 2006-04-21 09:19

#5 Why a tree, Besoeker?

Posted by: trailing wife 2006-04-21 09:06

#4 Oh, and local raids on companies employing illegal aliens netted some 1100 to be deported, plus managers to be tried for employing them. Finally, our county sheriff is working to clear his patch of illegals, as an indignant blogger explains.

Posted by: trailing wife 2006-04-21 08:41

#3 ICE has been busy lately. Two stories locally on a similar theme. In the first, a Pakistani Momma overstayed her visa for well over a decade, ignored opportunities to make things right, and finally was told she had to go back to Pakistan to do the paperwork at the embassy there. Once out of the country, the family (husband and a pair of teenagers, as I recall) were informed that she would have to remain outside the country for a number of years (I think approaching 10) before being allowed to apply for another visa. And, the poor dear doesn't get along with the cousins hosting her over there.

In a separate tale, Grandpa rescued a young relative and brought him back to the States. The youngster grew up thinking he was a regular American, only to discover when he went to register for Selective Service that Grandpa hadn't ever got round to filling out the paperwork. So the poor kid was told to pack his things to be sent back to Germany immediately. The entire community was up in arms -- he's a star on the football team, sweet girlfriend, that kind of thing.

Posted by: trailing wife 2006-04-21 08:26

#2 "We wondered why they are asking about computers when they were investigating a ticket and a bankruptcy?"

'Cos the ticket was for Peshawar, with layovers in Antwerp, Kuala Lumpur, Aden, Khartoum, Damascus, and Rawalpindi.

Posted by: Seafarious 2006-04-21 07:39

#1 This story reads a lot like the stories in the British press, oh, around July 2005.

Posted by: ed 2006-04-21 00:21

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