By

Mark Strassmann /

CBS News/ October 18, 2012, 7:20 PM

Alleged Fed Bank bomber raised red flags in college

(CBS News) CAPE GIRARDEAU, Mo. -- Quazi Nafis left little impression on students at Southeast Missouri State University. Some were struck by how homesick the 21-year-old freshman was.

Jim Dow met Nafis in physics class. He says Nafis gave him a gift -- a Quran -- and urged him to convert to Islam. But they talked politics only once.

Jim Dow

Jim Dow

/ CBS News

"He told me he did not believe Osama bin Laden was involved in the Twin Tower (bombing,) that he believed that bin Laden was a very good religious man and that a good devout religious Muslim would not do something like that," Dow said.

Bangladeshi students who came with Nafis to Missouri told the FBI last night they became alarmed when his political views slowly turned radical. He began talking about violence and videos recorded by Anwar al Awlaki -- the al Qaeda recruiter killed by a U.S. drone in Yemen last year.

The friends described one incident in which Nafis watched an Awlaki video onboard an airplane. His shocked friends told him to shut it off.

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Ken Dobbins, the university's president, says FBI agents have been on campus for weeks, and he added the school was never the target

Nafis was granted admission without producing his Bangladesh college grades. If he had, school officials would have discovered Nafis has flunked out.

"We put him in as a probationary student and he had to prove himself," Dobbins said, adding that he didn't then didn't do well, and "then he left."

Family of terror suspect stunned by allegations

Nufis was enrolled as a cyber-security major, but never took a cyber-security course.

In July, as a foreign student, Nufis notified the unviersity he was transferring to ASA College, a computer programming school in Manhattan. That's where he was enrolled when he was arrested Thursday.

© 2012 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.
11 Comments Add a Comment
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sleeves444 says:
"Bangladeshi students who came with Nafis to Missouri"

How do people like this pay for tuition, room and board, and other living expenses at OUR universities? Where do they get the money?

To kill a snake ---cut off its head. So why don't we stop these radicals from entering OUR country in the first place. Maybe an out-of-country tuition rate that is ten times the out of state rate?
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ksmit2 says:
How does any country benefit from having total strangers fly in to "go to school", with basically "no questions asked". Who keeps track of where the "student" goes when he separates from school. Educational institutions need to learn how to function without the revenue from "windfall" bums who call themselves students. When a school takes in one of these students, they should be wholly responsible for whatever damages and expenses the person might cause while they are on US soil. It may help them exercise more discretion in the selection process.
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LosAngelesCA says:
I feel so sad for his father who gave this brat his life savings so he could go to school in the United States.
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eroteme2 says:
As a Muslim he is less moderate than some, more moderate than some. As a Muslim he is a Muslim.
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margroks says:
It's past time that people actually apply the rules to everyone and actually eyeball people who clearly stand out like this loser. And seriously? Bin Laden wasn't a good Muslim, that's true but this idiot couldn't see anything but his own extremist hate. Probably decided, since he was a failure in school, that it was somehow the terrible US who was to blame. What a moron! Bin Laden ADMITTED he was the man behind the 9/11 bombings, praised this heinous act, and vowed to do it again! There is NO question he was behind it. And yes, the university who didn't really check him out is very much to blame for him getting this far.
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NotOnFB says:
International students are charged more money, that's why this school wanted him: for the money. Who else gets into college without showing transcripts??
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sepa2 replies:
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just like 911 terrorists were trained to fly.
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humaniam says:
I probably was considered extreme in my college days as well, but I am not trying to bomb anything!
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IAMCS says:
Since when does a University offer you admission without former transcripts or documentation of your educational history???
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mikaeldk replies:
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Good question! I went to SEMO in the 80's as a resident of Missouri and I barely got in! Perhaps we should look to the republican leadership in Missouri for an answer to this debacle. Maybe I should ask for a refund from SEMO? I am happy that I moved from there over 20 years ago!
lonestar9000 replies:
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They get in the same way illegals get driver's licenses and Social Security benefits: Ask questions and you get labelled a racist.
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