Enough! - six Americans held by Pak police

An appeal to all Pakistani brothers and Sisters living abroad!

We the poor Pakistanis need doctors and engineers trained in US and UK.

But for Allah’s sake.,

Do not send us your suicide bombers. We have had enough!

You may be missing the big religious shenanigans and some of your youth may want to avenge the cr@p in Palestine and Iraq. That’s your mission. But why us the poor Pakistanis have to pay for Iraqis and Palestinian cr@p? We have plenty of ours.

This gang of 5 or 6 disappear for a month, and then suddenly we hear that they are all getting married in Pak.

Why don’t these egyptian and yemini decent men go to their home countries to get married?

CAIR says these so called visitors left “farewell videos” that are very disturbing.

US probe into arrest of Americans in Pakistan

By Anwar Iqbal

Friday, 11 Dec, 2009 | 05:00 AM PST |

WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama said on Thursday he envisioned ‘a series of investigations’ into the arrest of five American Muslims in Pakistan for allegedly attempting to contact two militant groups.

A transcript released by the White House quoted President Obama as telling a news conference in Norway that the arrests would be investigated.

‘I think the details are still forthcoming,’ Mr Obama said. ‘There will undoubtedly be a series of investigations surrounding these events, so I’d prefer not to comment on them at this point.’

Mr Obama also sought to assure the American Muslim community that the arrests did not reflect on them or their loyalty to America.

‘I think what has been remarkable over the course of the last eight, nine years since 9/11 is the degree to which America has reaffirmed the extraordinary contributions of the Muslim American community and how they have been woven into the fabric of our nation in a seamless fashion,’ he said.

The five had been reported missing from Virginia in mid November. Their families had contacted the FBI to help find the missing men.

Meanwhile, Sabira Farouk, the mother of one of the suspects, told CNN that along with her son Umar, her husband had also been arrested. This brings to six the number of people in police custody in Pakistan.

The arrests came after a raid on Wednesday on a home in Sargodha.

Pakistani police officials told reporters they found laptops and maps showings areas where terrorists have been active.

Sabira Farouk, however, told CNN that her son was in Pakistan to get married, not to plot terror attacks as Pakistani police have alleged. She said her husband had gone with Umar to arrange the marriage.

The suspects include two Pakistani-Americans, two Yemeni-Americans and an Egyptian-American.

Officials in Washington told reporters that it’s too premature to link the men with any terrorist organisation, but police in Pakistan said preliminary investigations suggest they had sought to link up with the Jaish-i-Muhammad and Jamaatud Dawa militant organisations. Neither group showed interest, however.

So far no charges have been filed in the US and the FBI said that it was trying to determine whether a link existed between the five missing men and the arrests in Pakistan.

The US State Department said it did not have confirmation of the arrested individuals’ identities or whether they were Americans. The US embassy in Islamabad was seeking further information.

‘If the individuals are Americans, the United States will be seeking consular access,’ State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said.

Under the Geneva Convention, Pakistan is required to notify the United States about any Americans arrested, he added.

The US law-enforcement official said none of the five missing men had shown up on law-enforcement’s radar before they were reported missing. ‘These guys never surfaced with us before.’

Imam Johari Abdul-Malik of the Coordinating Council of Muslim Organisations in the Washington area said that the five were active in their mosques.

‘From all of our interviews, there was no sign they were outwardly radicalised,’ the imam said.

In an odd twist the break in the case of these young men in Sargodha came from their families. They were particularly concerned after watching the men’s farewell videos depicting scenes of war, death and declaring that they must defend the Muslims.

After the men disappeared in late November their family members, who are part of the local Muslim community in northern Virginia and around Washington DC, contacted the Council on American-Islamic Relations. CAIR put them in touch with the FBI and helped them get a lawyer.

Katherine Schweit, spokeswoman for the FBI, stated: ‘We are working with Pakistan authorities to determine their identities and the nature of their business there if indeed these are the students who had gone missing.’

One of the young men is a student at Howard University named Ramy Zamzam. Last week the FBI contacted Samirah Ali, president of Howard University, and informed her that he had been missing for a week.

Ms Ali said: ‘He’s a very nice guy, very cordial, very friendly.’

Agencies add: ‘We have had access to the five detainees,’ Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told reporters on Thursday at an unrelated news conference. She called the move ‘part of the usual outreach’ of the US government and declined further comment.

Senior police officer Haseeb Shah said: ‘A two-member FBI team has arrived in Sargodha to interrogate the six men.’

DAWN.COM | World | US probe into arrest of Americans in Pakistan

It is disturbing to hear that one of the 5 men left a “farewell video”.

Daily Times - Leading News Resource of Pakistan
FBI probes case of terror suspects held from Sargodha

  • Bureau probing detained men’s possible links to Jaish-e-Muhammad, Al Qaeda

WASHINGTON: The FBI on Thursday said it was probing the case of five terror suspects arrested in Pakistan, one of whom made an extremist-style “farewell” video before leaving his home in the US.

The five were arrested Wednesday in Sargodha, at the home of a member of banned extremist group Jaish-e-Muhammad, on suspicion of having links to Al Qaeda and other terror groups, Sargodha police chief Usman Anwar said.

Anwar identified the foreigners on Thursday as two Pakistani-Americans, an Egyptian, an Ethiopian and an Eritrean. Officials had previously said a Yemeni and a Swede were among those arrested.

Anwar also said that police arrested a man named Khalid Chaudhry, who was identified as a US national and local Jaish-e-Mohammad leader who is the “father of the two Pakistani-American brothers aged 22 and 25 years”. The US embassy in Islamabad was unable to confirm that US nationals were being held in Pakistan, saying they were investigating.

In Washington, Muslim leaders said the five men arrested on Wednesday had been living in northern Virginia with their families, close to the US capital, until they disappeared last month. FBI officials on Wednesday refused to confirm their nationalities.
**
Nihad Awad, executive director of the Washington, DC-based Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) told reporters that the men’s families contacted the organisation after they went missing.

Awad gave few details about the men but said he met on December 1 with their relatives.

He said the families brought a video showing one of the five men delivering a “final statement”, which included war images. afp**

Re: Enough! - six Americans held by Pak police

Please pass the same comments to likes of Lashkars as its their hatred-spreading which is coming back from outside.

The case has fanned fears that Americans and other Westerners — especially those of Pakistani descent — are traveling to Pakistan to join up with al-Qaida and other militant groups. It comes on the heels of charges against a Chicago man of Pakistani origin who is accused of surveying targets for the 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India.

It will make the life of Pakistanis in US much harder. Already Pakistanis are the ones whose visas are getting rejected, same would happen in US. Pakistanis would be treated with suspicion at airport, security checks etc. Similar thing has happened in Italy where they arrested Pakistanis for alleged Mumbai attacks.

Re: Enough! - six Americans held by Pak police

It could turn into an unethical with hunt.

Pak Embassy / consulate in the USA should also be grilled as to how these Arab origin terrorist-wanna-bees were given visas to Pak.

The next grilling should be done on the Karachi immigration staff as to how Arab terrorists go in an out country with no check at all.

Arrested US nationals being grilled in Lahore
Arrested US nationals being grilled in Lahore
Updated at: 2020 PST, Saturday, December 12, 2009
LAHORE: The arrested US nationals of Pakistani origin have been taken from Sargodha to Chohang Training Center, Lahore for investigation.

According to police, the joint investigation team, comprising officials of intelligence and police, is grilling the arrested US nationals at Chohang Training Center, Lahore.

The decision of their deportation will be made after completion of the investigation, the police said.