Law Enforcement Examiner
"The Pakistani Taliban has also been involved in, or claimed responsibility for, numerous attacks against U.S. interests, including a December 2009 suicide attack on a U.S. military base in Khost, Afghanistan, along the border with Pakistan, which killed seven U.S. citizens...."
Six suspects -- including Imams at the Miami Mosque and the Margate Mosque -- residing in Florida and in Pakistan were indicted on Saturday, May 14, in the Southern District of Florida on charges of providing financial and other material support to the Pakistani Taliban, a designated foreign terrorist organization.
The indictments are part of a counterterrorism operation run by members of the South Florida Joint Terrorism Task Force and the Miami office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The indictment charges Imam Hafiz Muhammed Sher Ali Khan (“Khan”), a 76-year old U.S. citizen and resident of Miami; his son Irfan Khan, 37, also a U.S. citizen and resident of Miami; and one of his other sons, Izhar Khan, 24, a U.S. citizen and resident of North Lauderdale, Florida.
Three other individuals residing in Pakistan, Ali Rehman, aka “Faisal Ali Rehman;” Alam Zeb; and Amina Khan, aka “Amina Bibi,” are also charged in the indictment. Amina Khan is the daughter of Khan and her son, Alam Zeb, is Khan’s grandson.
All six defendants are charged with conspiring to provide, and providing, material support to a conspiracy to murder, maim and kidnap persons overseas, as well as conspiring to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization, specifically, the Pakistani Taliban. Defendants Khan, Rehman and Zeb are also charged with providing material support to the Pakistani Taliban.
FBI agents arrested Hafiz Khan and his son Izhar Khan on Saturday in South Florida. They are scheduled to make their initial appearance in federal court in Miami on Monday, May 16, 2011. In addition, Irfan Khan was arrested in Los Angeles and is expected to make his initial appearance there. If convicted, each faces a potential 15 years in prison for each count of the indictment.
The remaining defendants are still at large in Pakistan.
Hafiz Khan is the Imam at the Miami Mosque, also known as the Flagler Mosque, in Miami. His son, Izhar Khan, is an Imam at the Jamaat Al-Mu’mineen Mosque in Margate, Fla. The indictment does not charge the mosques themselves with any wrongdoing, and the individual defendants are charged based on their provision of material support to terrorism, not on their religious beliefs or teachings, according to a press statement by the U.S. Attorney's Office.
U.S. Attorney Wifredo A. Ferrer stated, “Despite being an Imam, or spiritual leader, Hafiz Khan was by no means a man of peace. Instead, as today’s charges show, he acted with others to support terrorists to further acts of murder, kidnapping and maiming. But for law enforcement intervention, these defendants would have continued to transfer funds to Pakistan to finance the Pakistani Taliban, including its purchase of guns. Dismantling terrorist networks is a top priority for this office and the Department of Justice.”
The investigation was initiated by the local FBI office in conjunction with the JTTF based upon a review of suspicious financial transactions and other evidence; it was not classified as an undercover sting.
According to the allegations in the indictment, from around 2008 through November 2010, the suspects provided money, financial services, and other forms of support to the Pakistani Taliban. The Pakistani Taliban, also known as Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan, Tehrik-I-Taliban, Tehrik-e-Taliban, and Tehreek-e-Taliban, is a Pakistan-based terrorist organization formed in December 2007 by an alliance of radical Islamist militants. On August 12, 2010, the U.S. State Department formally designated the Pakistani Taliban as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, under Section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act separate from the Taliban currently fighting in Afghanistan.
According to the indictment, the Pakistani Taliban’s objectives include resistance against the lawful Pakistani government, enforcement of strict Islamic law known as Sharia, and opposition to the U.S. and coalition armed forces fighting in Afghanistan.
The Pakistani Taliban has committed numerous acts of violence in Pakistan and elsewhere, including suicide bombings that resulted in the death of civilians and Pakistani police, army, and government personnel, and other acts of murder, kidnapping and maiming. The Pakistani Taliban has also been involved in, or claimed responsibility for, numerous attacks against U.S. interests, including a December 2009 suicide attack on a U.S. military base in Khost, Afghanistan, along the border with Pakistan, which killed seven U.S. citizens; an April 2010 suicide bombing against the U.S. Consulate in Peshawar, Pakistan, which killed six Pakistani citizens; and the attempt by Faisal Shahzad to detonate an explosive device in New York City’s Times Square on May 1, 2010.
Most recently, on May 13, 2011, the Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the suicide attacks that killed at least 80 people at a police and military training facility in northwestern Pakistan. The Pakistani Taliban has links to both al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan.
According to the FBI, the defendants sought to aid the Pakistani Taliban’s fight against the Pakistani government and its perceived allies, including the United States, by supporting acts of murder, kidnapping and maiming in Pakistan and elsewhere, in order to displace the lawful government of Pakistan and to establish strict Islamic law known as Sharia.
The suspects, assisted by others in the United States and Pakistan, conspired to provide and provided material support to the Pakistani Taliban by soliciting, collecting and transferring money from the United States to supporters of the Pakistani Taliban, primarily using bank accounts and wire transfer services in the United States and Pakistan. According to the indictment, these funds were intended to purchase guns for the Pakistani Taliban, to sustain terrorists and their families, and generally to promote the Pakistani Taliban’s cause.
In addition, the indictment alleges that defendant Khan supported the Pakistani Taliban through a madrassa, or Islamic school, that he founded and controlled in the Swat region of Pakistan. Khan has allegedly used the madrassa to provide shelter and other support for the Pakistani Taliban and has sent children from his madrassa to learn to kill Americans in Afghanistan.
According to the allegations in the indictment, the suspects named in the indictment endorsed the violence perpetrated by the Pakistani Taliban. On one occasion in July 2009, suspects Khan and Irfan Khan participated in a recorded conversation in which Khan called for an attack on the Pakistani Assembly that would resemble the September 2008 suicide bombing of the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad, Pakistan.
On another occasion in September 2010, Hafiz Khan participated in a conversation in which he stated that he would provide that individual with contact information for Pakistani Taliban militants in Karachi, and upon hearing that mujahideen in Afghanistan had killed seven American soldiers, declared his wish that God kill 50,000 more. By - Jim Kouri
Jim Kouri, CPP, formerly Fifth Vice-President, is currently a Board Member of the National Association of Chiefs of Police, an editor for ConservativeBase.com, and he's a columnist for Examiner.com. In addition, he's a blogger for the Cheyenne, Wyoming Fox News Radio affiliate KGAB (www.kgab.com). Kouri also serves as political advisor for Emmy and Golden Globe winning actor Michael Moriarty.
He's former chief at a New York City housing project in Washington Heights nicknamed "Crack City" by reporters covering the drug war in the 1980s. In addition, he served as director of public safety at a New Jersey university and director of security for several major organizations. He's also served on the National Drug Task Force and trained police and security officers throughout the country. Kouri writes for many police and security magazines including Chief of Police, Police Times, The Narc Officer and others. He's a news writer and columnist for AmericanDaily.Com, MensNewsDaily.Com, MichNews.Com, and he's syndicated by AXcessNews.Com. Kouri appears regularly as on-air commentator for over 100 TV and radio news and talk shows including Fox News Channel, Oprah, McLaughlin Report, CNN Headline News, MTV, etc.
0 comments