2 charged in Fla. with terror support, conspiracy
Updated 8:09 PM ET
MIAMI Two South Florida men of Pakistani descent have been charged with plotting to provide material support to terrorists and to use a weapon of mass destruction within the U.S., federal prosecutors said Friday.
The men were identified as brothers Sheheryar Alam Qazi, 30, and 20-year-old Raees Alam Qazi. Both are naturalized U.S. citizens originally from Pakistan and both were arrested in the Fort Lauderdale area, prosecutors said.
Few details about the plot were provided by prosecutors or outlined in a brief, three-page grand jury indictment. Authorities said the case was not an FBI sting operation but declined any additional comment.
"There is simply no higher purpose than defending our nation from those who seek to do us harm. We owe a great debt of gratitude to the agents and prosecutors who worked so hard to keep us safe. Any potential threat posed by these two individuals has been disrupted," said Miami U.S. Attorney Wifredo Ferrer.
In Washington, Justice Department national security spokesman Dean Boyd called the case "an ongoing, very active investigation" but provided no specifics.
The indictment charges that the two provided money, property, lodging, communications equipment and other support for a conspiracy to obtain a weapon of mass destruction between July 2011 and this week. The goal was to "use a weapon of mass destruction (explosives) against persons and property within the United States," prosecutors said in a news release.
It wasn't clear whether the conspirators actually did obtain explosives or what their potential targets might have been.
The Qazi brothers had initial court appearances Friday, but court-appointed attorneys for the two did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment. An arraignment and bail hearing is scheduled for Dec. 7.
They are both charged with conspiring to provide material support to terrorists, which carries a maximum 15-year prison sentence, and with conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction. The maximum is life in prison for that charge.
South Florida has seen several high-profile terrorism cases, including the conviction of al Qaeda operative Jose Padilla and the convictions of five men accused of plotting to join forces with al Qaeda to destroy a landmark Chicago skyscraper and bomb FBI offices in several cities.
More recently, a Miami Muslim cleric and one of his sons are facing trial on charges they provided thousands of dollars in financial support to the Pakistani Taliban terrorism group.
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note to self..file believers under:
A. nominations for the terminally clueless
B... the plum bob of incredulous
C. Comments of the galactic dumb
The weapons were taken from a CSX rail yard on the city's northwest side in mid-November, said Richard Coes, a spokesman for the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
The weapons include assault rifles that Coes described as "AK-style." He declined to discuss other aspects of the case.
Gary Sease, a spokesman for rail line CSX Corp., said the Jacksonville, Fla.-based company is cooperating with law enforcement to recover the weapons and investigate the theft.
History: After the death of Mohammed bin Laden, control of the company passed to Salem bin Laden, Osama's half brother. The roots of the first known Bush-bin Laden convergence date back to the mid-1970s, when the two clans were linked by a Houston businessman named James R. Bath. Bath had befriended George W. Bush in the late 1960s, when they both served in the Texas Air National Guard. By 1976, when Gerald Ford appointed the elder George Bush as CIA director, Bath was acting as a business agent for Salem bin Laden's interests in Texas. (Texas and Saudi Arabia were well-connected by this point through U.S. oil companies and related industries with operations in both locations.) In 1991 Time magazine and later other publications reported on allegations by Bath's former business partner that the Bush CIA hired Bath in 1976 to create offshore companies to move CIA funds and aircraft between Texas and Saudi Arabia. After W. lost a bid for Congress, he decided to launch an oil company in Midland in 1979. For $50,000, Bath bought a 5 percent stake in W.'s Arbusto (Spanish for "Bush") partnerships. At the time, Bath also served as business agent for several prominent Saudis, including Salem bin Laden. In exchange for a percentage of the deals, Bath made U.S. investments for these clients in his own name, according to Time. Although Bath has said that he invested his own money in Arbusto, not Saudi money, the fact that he was Salem's agent at the time has fueled speculation that Osama bin Laden's eldest brother was an early investor in W.'s first oil venture. It was around the time of this investment, incidentally, that Osama bin Laden made his first trip to the Khyber Pass, where he would soon join the Mujaheddin and the CIA in the holy war that expelled the Soviets from Afghanistan. (Salem, for his part, owned a house in Marble Falls, and died in a 1988 plane crash near San Antonio.)From Texas Observer article
They were here and have been here for a long time. It is about Oil and what money can buy.
We need leaders with a set of balls (which they don`t have).
We`re sitting back just watching them take over and nobody`s doing a thing to stop it .
Wake up people before it`s to late.
Who are they?
&
What do you think they are taking over?