Washington, Dec 11 (IANS) Five American men arrested in Pakistan this week on suspicion they were plotting terrorist attacks had planned to go to Afghanistan as they believed a ‘jihad’ must be waged, CNN said citing a Pakistani police interrogation report.
The five Americans arrested Wednesday by Pakistani police at a home in Sargodha, a town about 200 km south of Islamabad, will be transferred to Lahore for security reasons, the news channel said in a report from Islamabad Friday citing Interior Minister Rehman Malik.
The Pakistani interrogation report carries details about the men and shows pictures of Internet sites, laptops, mobile phones, an iPod and an external hard drive seized by police.
‘They had deep interest in the religion, and they were of the opinion that a jihad must be waged against the infidels for the atrocities committed by them against Muslims around the world,’ said the report, which refers to the five as college students.
The report focused on one of the suspects identified as Ahmed Abdullah Minni, a 20-year-old American born in Virginia.
It said he regularly went online to watch attacks on the US military in Afghanistan and that he left comments praising the actions. That caught the attention of militants, and he was eventually contacted by a person named Saifullah, the report says.
A Yahoo! e-mail account was set up so the men and militants could communicate, the report says. E-mails were never sent from the account, but people would leave messages in the draft folder and delete them after reading, the Pakistani police report said.
‘This mode of communication enabled them to pass on messages without fear of interception by the FBI,’ it said.
According to CNN, the report said the suspects made a plan with Saifullah to go from Pakistan to Afghanistan. They gathered in Karachi and left for Hyderabad on Dec 1. They tried to hook up with two militant groups – Jaish-e-Mohammed and the Jamaat-ud-Dawa – but neither showed interest.
‘They went to the madrassah (an Islamic school) of Jaish-e-Mohammad where they informed them about their desire for jihad. However, the management of the madrassah refused to keep them, and advised them to go to Jamaat-ud-Dawa in Lahore,’ the report said.
‘Interestingly, the Jamat also refused to keep them as they could not provide a surety. Thus, they came along with their friend Umar Farooq to Sargodha.’
Pakistani authorities arrested five men Wednesday, and a sixth man – the father of one of the five – was arrested afterwards, police said.
Officials said the six men include three Pakistani-Americans, an Ethiopian-American, an Egyptian-American and an Eritrean-American.
Along with Ahmed Abdullah Minni, there were snapshots and brief profiles of only four others – Umar Farooq, Aman Hassan Yemer, Waqar Hussain Khan and Ramy Zamzam – all from the Washington DC area. The sixth man was Khalid Farouk, father of Umar, the report says.
