Five Americans were in Pakistan for jihad, officials say

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — The five American young men detained in Pakistan had come to the country for jihad, local authorities revealed Thursday, and had planned a big attack.

News this week of the Americans caught in the town of Sargodha, in the center of the Punjab province, will fuel concerns that Pakistan is a magnetic draw for extremists across the world. The men were reported missing by their families back home last month. It was the third recent case of a terrorist plot involving U.S. citizens that is linked to Pakistan.

News reports have connected the five men to the banned Pakistani militant group Jaish-e-Mohammad, the outfit that British terror suspect Rashid Rauf belonged to, and which is implicated in the 2002 murder of American journalist Daniel Pearl. But Sargodha's police chief, Usman Anwar, suggested to McClatchy that their link was to an even more radical outfit — which perhaps indicated al Qaida.

"It's above Jaish. It's something more serious than that," said Anwar said, in a telephone interview, without specifying.

The detentions came to light on Wednesday but the men were taken into custody on Dec. 5, or earlier, having arrived in Pakistan on Nov. 30. Three of the men were of Pakistani origin, one of Egyptian parentage and one of Yemeni origin. One of the men, named by police as Umar Farouq had links to Sargodha and they were staying in a family home there. They are believed to be in their 20s, including a dental student from Howard University.

"They came to Pakistan for the specific purpose of doing jihad. Sargodha was a safe place for them, so that's why they came here," said Anwar. "They wanted to go to heaven, perhaps... I suppose having American citizens here doing jihad would have been a big blow for U.S. interests."

Police seized literature, a computer with a hard disk "full" of material. According to reports, one of the men had made a video which he had left for his family where he explained that he had left home to "defend Islam."

While world attention is focused on Pakistani Taliban groups in northwest of the country, Punjab, in the east of the country, houses older Pakistani militant groups, some of which have developed close links with al Qaida. Jaish is based in the town of Bahawalpur, in the south of Punjab.

Sargodha contains a Pakistan Air Force base, which is associated with the country's nuclear program and has twice been the intended target of attacks by extremists but police believe the presence of the men in the town may have been coincidental.

"One of the possibilities (is the Air Force base) but I really don't think so. The attack was something more acute and bigger," said Anwar.

The police chief said that the men had claimed they came to Pakistan "that they were about to look for a girl, to get married."

Pakistani law enforcement officers had "continuously tracked" the men from the moment they arrived last month at Karachi international airport, and all carried U.S. passports, a Pakistani official, who could not be identified as he was not authorized to discuss the case with the press, told McClatchy Wednesday.

They traveled to the city of Hyderabad, returned to Karachi, the hub of commerce in Pakistan, and then went to Lahore, the Punjab provincial capital, where they spent five days before going to Sargodha, he said.

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http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/80394.html

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

Pakistani law enforcement officers had "continuously tracked" the men from the moment they arrived last month at Karachi international airport...

Pakistani law enforcement is either surprisingly competent or they got a lot of help....

[alienlovechild 75]

"They came to Pakistan for the specific purpose of doing jihad. Sargodha was a safe place for them, so that's why they came here," said Anwar. "They wanted to go to heaven, perhaps... I suppose having American citizens here doing jihad would have been a big blow for U.S. interests."

Police seized literature, a computer with a hard disk "full" of material. According to reports, one of the men had made a video which he had left for his family where he explained that he had left home to "defend Islam."

Sargodha contains a Pakistan Air Force base, which is associated with the country's nuclear program and has twice been the intended target of attacks by extremists but police believe the presence of the men in the town may have been coincidental.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/80394.html

I doubt having Americans doing their jihadist thing over there would have much impact on our foreign policy.

Maybe the Pakistanis didn't want these guys around their nukes so they acted quicker than usual?

[Saddle Bronc 124]

Pakistani law enforcement officers had "continuously tracked" the men from the moment they arrived last month at Karachi international airport...

Pakistani law enforcement is either surprisingly competent or they got a lot of help....

I'll take "third possibility" here. Because they came from US, the police decided to follow them to get ransom-bribes--and then some higher-ups decided to get even bigger bribes courtesy of US taxpayer.

[mawilson 2,133]

Pakistani law enforcement officers had "continuously tracked" the men from the moment they arrived last month at Karachi international airport...

Pakistani law enforcement is either surprisingly competent or they got a lot of help....

Yeah, something doesn't compute.

[Nizzy 1]

Pakistani law enforcement officers had "continuously tracked" the men from the moment they arrived last month at Karachi international airport...

Pakistani law enforcement is either surprisingly competent or they got a lot of help....

They were probably following them to get bribe money but than ended up turning them over when the other side offered a bigger payout...

I am so peeved that they were heading to Afghanistan. If they want to seek justice, than go there and use your education to do some good and help the Afghans out. Damn fools. I am so glad they got caught.

[Ban Hammer 13,877]

Pakistani law enforcement officers had "continuously tracked" the men from the moment they arrived last month at Karachi international airport...

Pakistani law enforcement is either surprisingly competent or they got a lot of help....

I'll take "third possibility" here. Because they came from US, the police decided to follow them to get ransom-bribes--and then some higher-ups decided to get even bigger bribes courtesy of US taxpayer.

[Saddle Bronc 124]

Pakistani law enforcement officers had "continuously tracked" the men from the moment they arrived last month at Karachi international airport...

Pakistani law enforcement is either surprisingly competent or they got a lot of help....

They were probably following them to get bribe money but than ended up turning them over when the other side offered a bigger payout...

Basically variant of my earlier-posted "third option".

I am so peeved that they were heading to Afghanistan. If they want to seek justice, than go there and use your education to do some good and help the Afghans out. Damn fools. I am so glad they got caught.

Unfortunately, their version of "justice" is the kind that would have been advocated by Zia and his derivative-fallouts AQ/Taliban--given that Zia was unremorseful 1971 war-criminal whose death was greeted in Comilla District with distributions of cham-chams (he had been stationed there for part of that year).