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| U.S. Hunts Terror Clues in Case of 2 Brothers |
| 2004-01-02 |
| Edited for new stuff and stateside investigation: Eighteen days after two American brothers were arrested in the Philippines on suspicion of links to terrorists, United States authorities remain in search of clues that the brothers were in fact providing support to Islamic militants, law enforcement officials said on Wednesday. A senior official said the brothers, Michael Ray Stubbs and Jamil Daoud Mujahid, had been unknown to American law enforcement until they were arrested near Manila this month. The official described that lack of information as potentially worrying and said the F.B.I. was trying to determine whether the men were "true believers" in the mode of John Walker Lindh, the American Muslim who fought alongside the Taliban in Afghanistan. The FBI is real good at digging up facts, after things go wrong. Mr. Mujahid, 56, is a convert to Islam who lives in a working-class neighborhood in Newark, Calif., some 40 miles southeast of San Francisco. Two of his neighbors there described him as a Vietnam veteran who wore military fatigues, trained German shepherds, traveled frequently and was last seen in early December. They said his female relatives had worn black veils since a family conversion to Islam several years ago. So the whole family converted? That fits with the "family affair" networks we’ve seen. Mr. Mujahid’s son Jamil Jr. said in an interview in Newark on Wednesday that the brothers had arrived in the Philippines only days before their arrest on Dec. 13. The younger Mr. Mujahid and his sister, Rashida, who was interviewed on CNN, said they believed that the Philippine authorities had unjustly detained the men, either as a way of extorting money from them or to demonstrate resolve against terrorism. "Lies, all lies!" Mr. Stubbs, 55, of Antioch, Calif., east of Oakland, worked from 1990 to 2000 as a heating and air-conditioning technician at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where he held a high-level security clearance. Since his arrest, the F.B.I. has been working with counterintelligence officials from the laboratory to try to determine whether he gained access to classified information. Lawrence Livermore, near San Francisco, is one of the country’s leading nuclear weapons laboratories and has also done research on technologies aimed at detecting biological weapons. Susan Houghton, a Livermore spokeswoman, said Wednesday that Mr. Stubbs had been given a Q-level security clearance, the highest level granted to employees. That clearance would have allowed him access to classified buildings, she said, but he would not necessarily have been able to obtain classified information. Back in the day, I was a cable tv technician in a NATO war HQ. Because of where my cables ran, and what was there, I had to have the highest level clearance as well, Cosmic Top Secret - Atomal. Because you would have air conditioning in all the labs, that’s why Michael had that clearance level. In any case, Ms. Houghton said, nothing in Mr. Stubbs’s background or conduct while he was an employee had been seen as troubling. If he’s a recent "convert", this may not be a worry, he left in 2000. In announcing on Tuesday that the brothers would be deported, Philippine immigration officials said they knew of nothing to connect them to past or planned terrorist attacks. But the two men made contact with people linked to terrorist groups, the Filipinos said, and Mr. Mujahid, formerly known as James Stubbs, maintained bank accounts that held "substantial deposits" from "contacts of suspicious and dubious background." Oh goody, a paper trail. Officials of the F.B.I. and the United States Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement have said that no charges are pending against the men but that investigations are being conducted. It is not clear when they will be deported by the Philippines. Just hang on to them, please. Mr. Mujahid’s children said he had gone to the Philippines to visit his wife, a Filipino. The younger Mr. Mujahid, 31, said his father had traveled earlier to Sudan to study Islam. He said his uncle, Mr. Stubbs, was a Christian who had not converted to Islam. The Mercury News report quoted some of Mr. Mujahid’s neighbors in Newark as saying he was a strict Muslim who refused to give Halloween candy to neighborhood children because of the holiday’s pagan roots. "Begone, infidel demon children!" The neighbors, who were not otherwise identified, told the newspaper that Mr. Mujahid had returned from Sudan in early December wearing a long gray beard and had told them he would soon be traveling again, to the Middle East. Bingo! We have us a winner! |
| Posted by:Steve |