This item is available on the Militant Islam Monitor website, at http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/3747

New indictments against Muslim students in Georgia who tried to join Laskhar-e-Taiba

December 10, 2008

Terrorism charges against Georgians detailed


By BILL RANKIN The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Wednesday, December 10, 2008

http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/stories/2008/12/10/georgia_terrorism_suspects.html

Atlanta terrorism defendants Syed Haris Ahmed and Ehsanul Islam Sadequee communicated with and gave information to terrorists bent on waging violent jihad, according to new indictments by a federal grand jury. In newly amended — or "superceding" — indictments against each man, prosecutors added information on the breadth of the defendants' communications before their arrests two years ago.

Both men are charged with conspiring to provide material support to terrorists. That includes their trying, in 2005, to join Lashkar-e-Taiba, the militant group which India blames for the bloody three-day seige of Mumbai last month.

Ahmed and Sadequee have pleaded not guilty and are scheduled to be tried separately. Ahmed's trial is set for June 1 in U.S. District Court in Atlanta.

Sadequee is to stand trial next August. Ahmed's lawyer, Jack Martin, declined comment. Neither of Sadequee's lawyers could be reached for comment early Wednesday.

During a trip to Washington in April 2005, Ahmed, a former Georgia Tech student, and Sadequee, of Roswell, recorded amateurish videos of "symbolic and infrastructure targets for potential terrorist attacks," said the indictment, obtained late Tuesday.

In one of the videos, while Ahmed and Sadequee pass the Pentagon as they drive toward Washington. "This is where our brothers attacked the Pentagon," Sadequee can be heard saying on the video, according to the indictment.

The videos were sent to Aabid Hussein Khan, who was sentenced to prison time in England last summer for possessing articles for terrorism. According to Tuesday's indictment, when his residence was searched by British counter-terrorism investigators on Oct. 21, 2005, Khan had the videos recorded by Ahmed and Sadequee.

Khan also had maps and timetables for the Washington and New York public transit systems; information on truck routes into New York; schematics of the financial district in lower Manhattan; aerial photos of the U.S. Naval Base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; and information concerning paramilitary training camps in Pakistan, the indictment said.

Separately, the new indictment said, between August 2005 and April 2006, Sadequee was in contact with a number of supporters of violent jihad. They included Mirsad Bektasevic, who was arrested in Bosnia Herzegovina in October 2005 after being found with more than 20 pounds of plastic explosives, firearms, bomb-making materials and a manifesto promising an attack on Western interests, the indictment said.

This item is available on the Militant Islam Monitor website, at http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/3747