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| India-Pakistan |
| Protesters Defend Nine al-Qaida Suspects |
| 2002-12-20 |
| Protesting doctors chanted anti-American slogans along a main Lahore road Friday demanding the release of a prominent physician and his relatives suspected of being al-Qaeda supporters. Several of the some 50 doctors complained that FBI agents participated in the raid Thursday on the home of naturalized American citizen Javed Ahmad, arrested with eight family members. "Yeah! Let him go! So what if he's a terrorist?" Police released four of the relatives Friday. Those still in custody with Ahmad include his sons, Umar Karar and Khyzer Ali, also naturalized Americans, and Ahmad's brother Naveed Khawja and his son Usman, naturalized Canadians. Ahmad lived in Florida from 1972 to 1983. The other men returned to live in Pakistan several years ago. Good riddance. Pakistani police arrested the nine men after a brief exchange of gunfire in the raid aimed at discovering whether Ahmad and his family helped smuggle weapons for possible terror attacks. "Cheezit, doc! It's the feds!" "Gimme that rod!" "You'll never take us alive, coppers!" Police said Friday they found $109,500 and an assault rifle at the home. FBI agents Thursday seized computers and computer disks. "Obviously they were arrested on suspicion of their links with al-Qaida," Interior Ministry spokesman Iftikhar Ahmad told The Associated Press in Islamabad, Pakistan's capital. "Hey, doc! I'm early for my appointment... Say! That's a really neat piece of artillery y'got there..." |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |