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Two students indicted for jihad

Posted on: Wednesday, 19 July 2006, 18:23 CDT

ATLANTA (Reuters) - A federal grand jury indicted two U.S. citizens on Wednesday on charges of plotting "violent jihad" and undergoing paramilitary training in northwest Georgia to prepare themselves for terrorist acts.

Syed Haris Ahmed, 21, born in Pakistan and a student at Georgia Tech, was arrested in March. Wednesday's charges superseded an earlier indictment against him, adding three counts of material support of terrorism and a foreign terrorist organization.

FBI officials in April arrested Ehsanul Islam Sadequee, born in 1986 in Bangladesh. He was also added to the indictment.

Both men developed contacts with other supporters of jihad, traveling to Toronto, Canada, and made video clips of "potential terrorist targets" in Washington including the Capitol building, the indictment said.

"Ahmed, Sadequee and another person known to the Grand Jury engaged in physical and rudimentary paramilitary training including activities with paintball guns in northwestern Georgia," said the indictment filed at Atlanta district court.

It said Ahmed traveled to Pakistan to get paramilitary and religious training with the aim of fighting in Kashmir, while Sadequee went to Bangladesh in part to support jihad.

The case is one of several in which U.S. justice officials have prosecuted suspects whose alleged plots were in their very early stages.

U.S. Attorney David Nahmias defended the validity of making arrests and charges before a specific plot has been hatched.

"The indictment does not allege that these defendants had proceeded to a point that they posed an imminent threat to the United States. But in today's world we no longer wait until a bomb is built and ready to explode," he said in a statement.

Source: REUTERS

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