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Ali Jaleel, the al Qaeda suicide bomber who was aided by Reaz Qadir Khan, an American citizen. Image from the SITE Intelligence Group. |
A naturalized American citizen who is originally from Pakistan has been indicted by the US government for providing material support to a Maldivian suicide bomber who attacked a Pakistani intelligence headquarters in Lahore on May 27, 2009.
Thirty-three people were killed in the suicide assault, which was executed by three heavily armed al Qaeda suicide bombers [see LWJ report, Terror assault team targets police and intelligence officials in Lahore].
Reaz Qadir Khan was arrested two days ago by the FBI in Portland, Ore., and charged with “conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists,” the FBI stated in a press release. “If convicted, he faces a potential maximum sentence of life in prison.”
Khan allegedly provided support to Ali Jaleel, a Maldivian who was eulogized by al Qaeda in a videotape released in September 2009 that celebrated the eighth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 attack on the US. Al Qaeda showed footage of Jaleel, who was also known as Musab Sayyid, and another suicide bomber who was also involved in the Lahore attack. In the tape, Jaleel is seen training at a terrorist camp.
The FBI claimed that Khan “conspired with an individual named Ali Jaleel and others to provide material support and resources and to conceal the nature of such support and resources, knowing they would be used in a conspiracy to kill, maim, or kidnap persons abroad” from December 2005 to June 2009. The “others” who conspired with Khan and Jaleel were not named in the indictment.
In 2006, Khan attempted to assist Jaleel “and a small group from the Maldives … travel to Pakistan to train for violent jihad in Iraq or Afghanistan, but they were detained and returned to the Maldives, where Jaleel was placed under house arrest.”
Undeterred by his house arrest, Jaleel continued to communicate with Khan and worked to travel to Pakistan.
“Khan provided advice to Jaleel on how to avoid detection and offered to arrange for money to be sent to Jaleel,” the FBI stated. “In October 2008, Jaleel allegedly told Khan he needed ‘$2,500 for everything’ and asked that Khan take care of his family and educate his children.”
“Khan later instructed Jaleel to pick up the money he needed to enter the training camp from an individual in Karachi, Pakistan,” the FBI stated. “To arrange for this transfer, Khan allegedly contacted an individual in Los Angeles whom he knew could quickly arrange for Jaleel to pick up money in Pakistan. According to indictment, the individual in Los Angeles then arranged for the money to be available for pick-up from the individual in Karachi.”
It is unclear how Jaleel left the Maldives and entered Pakistan, but he is thought to have attended a terrorist training camp “in what is believed to be the Federally Administered Tribal Area of Pakistan.”
Maldives nationals have been detained in Pakistan’s tribal agencies in the past. In April 2009, “nine Maldives-based jihadists” were arrested in “Waziristan,” according to The Hindu. Al Qaeda and allied groups are known to operate suicide training camps in the Taliban-controlled tribal agencies of North and South Waziristan.
4 Comments
Ali Jaleel was sentenced for 2 years house arrest in 2006 in the Maldives. However just before his sentence was going to be finished, he was caught again for breaching his house arrest and he was sentenced for four months extra, according to the Haveeru Online, a Maldivian newspaper. By the summer of 2008, he was free to go where ever he went, hence why he ended up in Pakistan training in an terrorist camp, and ultimately blew himself up in 2009 at the ISI headquarters in Lahore.
Nice sleuthing, Feds! The Maldives is a hotbed of radical Islamism, funded by tourist foreign exchange and Saudi Wahabi money. There is a funny YouTube video of a Western couple renewing their marriage vows in a Maldivian ceremony where the translations show that the locals were solemnly berating and insulting the couple in their native tongue. The democratically elected prime minster was overthrown in a coup and is under arrest.
All terrorist plots lead to one country ie Jihad Central AKA Pakistan.
Without terrorism they would get no money from the International community.
We know it.They know it.
@ Paul
But Paul, Pakistan is our unwavering ally in the “war on terror”, remember? They throw every resource available into stopping terrorists from training and flourishing in plain sight, so there’s no way terrorism could run through Pakistan. I hope you can sense the sarcasm. I agree that many terrorist plots run through Pakistan for sure, but you’re forgetting about the Arab Cesspool, I mean, “Arab Spring”. Terrorist plots have so many nice new havens to materialize from now. Libya, Tunisia and Egypt are more fertile than an 18-year old girl on prom night when it comes to the ability to plot terrorism. I absolutely love how Cuba is on the list of State Sponsors of Terrorism while Pakistan isn’t. Cuba sponsors Lashkar-e-taiba right? Oh right, that’s Pakistan. How about Jaish-e-Mohammed, surely Cuba has supported them? Nope, Pakistan again. Well since those organizations are primarily used as Pakistan’s proxies in the Kashmir dispute with India, Cuba must have worked with organizations having transnational jihadi goals such as Al Qaeda and the Taliban right? Again, Pakistan. There are two reasons the U.S. won’t add Pakistan to the State Sponsors of Terrorism list. First is because, by law, it’ll banish us from doing any type of business with Pakistan. This includes working together to disrupt terrorist organizations. Now I know the amount of cooperation is more tiny and pathetic than what Farva in the movie Super Troopers showed ladies he’s packin’ during his full frontal shower scene, but apparently the State Department feels differently. Billions in your tax payer dollars differently I might add. This is pretty much a rub when considering the fact that Pakistan will NEVER cut ties with its favored proxy jihadi organizations, but I digress. Second reason Pakistan won’t make the list is because, drum roll please, they have nuclear weapons… lots of them. They continue to build more as a buffer to India’s overwhelming military superiority too. For more info on each country’s nuclear arsenal and reasons for not only keeping them, but expanding their nuclear weapons capabilities, I recommend a book called The Second Nuclear Age by Paul Bracken. He dives into non-state actors like jihadi organization ambitions to acquire nuclear weapons also. This article highlights another point I feel compelled to comment on. Organizations like CAIR love to cry about “Muslim rights in America being trampled, and unfair surveillance of our mosques” and so on and so forth. Well, I hate to break it to you CAIR, but read this article and maybe you can see why. Not to sound like a hardcore neo-conservative, but we live in different times now, and obscuring our vision through a PC lens is just inviting another 9/11. Are there Muslims who cooperate with U.S. intelligence at home and abroad to help deter terrorist attacks? Absolutely. Are most Muslims terrorists? No not even close, I’ll never dispute that. But articles, like the one I’m commenting on, serve as reminders about why Muslims have become a prime target for U.S. surveillance at home and abroad. If white, retired Marine, atheists, who love the Seattle Seahawks and loathe the 49ers, ever start blowing themselves up in other countries to further an agenda to subjugate the planet, I promise to understand should I become arbitrarily monitored since I fit the description. Just to be clear, I have NO ambitions to subjugate the planet or detonate myself abroad, I was being sarcastic, though I do love the Seahawks, GO HAWKS! I know “progressives” who may be reading this won’t understand my sarcasm since it doesn’t fit nicely into their world view about the U.S. being evil oppressors, while dictators like Ahmadinejad and Kim Jong Un are champions of human rights; so just figured I’d clarify myself.