2 Egyptians Face Terror Charges In S.C.

Pipe Bombs Found In Car Of Students Near Navy Base, Claimed Were Fireworks

(AP)  Two Egyptian students attending a university in Florida were indicted Friday for carrying explosive materials across state lines, and one of them was charged with teaching the other how to use them for violent reasons.

Ahmed Abdellatif Sherif Mohamed, 24, an engineering graduate student and teaching assistant at the University of South Florida in Tampa, faces terrorism charges for teaching and demonstrating how to use the explosives. He and Youssef Samir Megahed, 21, an engineering student, were stopped for speeding in Goose Creek, S.C., on Aug. 4, where they have been held ever since.

Both men are Egyptian nationals, authorities said.

The two were stopped with pipe bombs in their car near a U.S. Navy base in South Carolina where alleged enemy combatants have been held. They were held on state charges while the FBI continued to investigate whether they were linked with terror.

Mohamed was charged with distributing information relating to explosives, destructive devices, and weapons of mass destruction, which is a terrorism statute, a Justice Department official said. The crime faces a maximum of 20 years in prison.

Both men are being held at a county jail in South Carolina. A preliminary hearing on the state charges is set for Sept. 21.

Defense attorney Andy Savage did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

The indictment, a sheet that officially brings charges against the defendants, was handed up in Tampa.

In South Carolina, where Mohamed and Megahed have been held in the Berkeley County jail, U.S. Attorney Reginald I. Lloyd praised state and federal authorities for cooperating in the four-week investigation that initially did not look like a terrorism case.

"The arresting deputy's vigilance and the immediate response of our local investigators and prosecutors are highly commendable," Lloyd said in a statement.

Since the Aug. 4 arrest, authorities sought to determine whether Mohamed and Megahed were fledgling terrorists or merely college students headed to the beach with devices made from fireworks they bought at a Wal-Mart store in their car, as they claimed. The local sheriff in South Carolina said the explosives were "other than fireworks."

The charges follow several searches in Tampa, including of a storage facility and a park where the explosives might have been tested, authorities said.

Both Mohamed and Megahed are in the country legally on student visas, officials said.

[RichardsHead]

Hey Whitman, if I remember correctly, the imigration problem started long before Bush took office. I'm not taking up for Bush cause he was part of the problem, buy only a part. Do you really think any one individual whether he is President or not could conjure up the Iraq war all by his or her self? Better start digging through the records and follow the money trail. By the way do you remember Kissinger? He hired Obama years ago, It was his first "real" job.
My question is would you recognize the real enemy if he were looking at you?

[actornaught]

investing on the enemy is a bad move..
Posted by xzavierbrown

Much as w has contributed so much to arming, recruiting and training for AQI by making Iraq a death-monger''s disneyland. In fact, there would BE no AQI if it wasn''t for w''s utter disregard for all of his handlers. Even d!ck knew Iraq would be a quagmire...

[j-whitman]

xzavierbrown,,, You keep putting my name up there but don''t post anything I talked about ---- Just what am I up to ???

[Krazcarl]

Let''s face it this is a bad time to be from the middle east and in USA and riding around with explosive material in the car you just got 3 strikes and if your teacing at college you should know better just think if you were black driving around watts Ca. in the 60''s with a car full of cans of gas you''d be suspect. Were talking about men that kill women and children and tie bombs to there body they make David Koresh{?} look like a pasifist. Either they are ignorant or up to something and these guys are trained to be clever we can take no chances, this wasn''t a dicey email. If I were a cop I''d drag them in bin laden is getting desprate and has lots of strings to pull and he''s pulling''em. The biggest mistake we can make is believing there world is like ours it''s not. We should and have to be weary. Remember they think the more they kill will get them closer to god and that my friends is the difference.

[xzavierbrown]

Posted by j-whitman at 01:06 PM : Sep 01, 2007

*****

with all that hardwork..the liberal''s effort will be rewarded with an attack.....AND THERE ARE ENOUGH EVIDENCE ON CELLULOID to point to who sided with the enemy..not even the most brilliant revisionist can erase that..investing on the enemy is a bad move..

[xzavierbrown]

Posted by j-whitman at 01:06 PM : Sep 01, 2007


**nice change of strategy..NOW YOUR UPSET THAT THESE *** ARE HERE and I bet you would whine that why the bush administration is protecting thier rights and bush closed gitmo..and we refused to implement any spying program.

you can fool some people but I got my eye on you..I KNOW WHAT YOU ARE UP TO..

[toolmangler-2009]

radio,,, Notice how these Bush lovers are denying the threat of terrorists being in our country ??? ---- Anything to hide Bush''''s failures
Posted by j-whitman at 01:06 PM : Sep 01, 2007


J'', I was watching the one of the Croc hunters old show when I read your comment and looked up to see him holding a Mamba by the tail, and the thought hit me, Thats the same thing the US has done and now our snake is ill at us.

[j-whitman]

Is America Safer ????--- I don''t think so,
,, More visa''s have been given to bring in the students & better educated like these people, our southern border Bush refuses to secure, instead he does the compleate oppisite letting thousands of 18 wheelers into our country when all the agents & agencies involved still can''t inspect more than 1 out of 10 ordinary cars.
... Want to talk about the neglect to port security ??

[secundus2]

Thanks to "zilla76" for the additional info about the Tampa media.

The landlord also apparently needs to be asked a few questions. He rented his premises to Sami al Arian as the HQ of his think tank and then let one of these suspects store his stuff there a couple of years later. He is either very unlucky or very careless.

[j-whitman]

I''m listening to Ron Paul in Las Vegas --- That dude is calling it right..... Terrorism as we define it was created by us by our foreign policies of creating artificial borders & disposing of elected leaders in foregn countries for representing thier own people.... It goes back to WW 1 ---
--- Our good intentions of westernizing, nation or democracy building created the blow back we see today.

[j-whitman]

radio,,,, It''s obvious they are testing our security... Did you notice, they aren''t charged with any violation of our terrorism laws ?? --- Existing laws are enough to keep them locked up for 20 years,,,, The rest is mostly created out of hype & the old Nazi propaganda of how they used terrorism to scare thier own people.

[radiob-2009]

J
Yes what about all of the "lucky" arrest we have had. They were not due to "intel" or good police work but plain old luck. One of these days we will not be so lucky.

[j-whitman]

radio,,, Notice how these Bush lovers are denying the threat of terrorists being in our country ??? ---- Anything to hide Bush''s failures

[likeitis5050]

Kids being kids...shoot. Can''t even have a little fun anymore. What happened to the ''boys will be boys'' attitude of some 30 years ago? Gee whiz...on the other hand...

if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck...it probably shouldn''t be driving around with bomb c...rap in its car. How stupid...or arrogant...in these times of post 9/11. Do they raise them that stupid in Egypt?

[radiob-2009]

This incident is not like when alot of us were kids and we made "pipe bombs" out of firecrackers and cherry bombs. These individuals were close to a Naval base with these "pipe bombs" and LIVED a long ways from it. These arrests were the result of "luck" . Had these arrests not taken place ?????????????

[keithle1]

"If you kill one person, it''s like killing every person in the world."

Do Muslims believe in that or not?

[toolmangler-2009]

Posted by zootallures2 at 05:15 PM : Aug 31, 2007


Yeah! I know zooty. You want the USA to be destroyed so you can get back on your prayer rug and pray for the destruction of the world.

[on_alert247]

Anti-Islam? Is that someone who has come to the conclusion that it teaches a violent and intolerant doctrine?

[cbs_oliver]

Interesting.

On the other hand......

"Steven Emerson is an American investigative journalist specializing in national security, terrorism, and Islamic extremism. He is the executive director of The Investigative Project, a data-gathering center on Islamist groups, and the author of six books on terrorism and national security, including American Jihad: The Terrorists Living Among Us (2002).

Emerson is known for having predicted, before September 11, 2001, that Islamists would launch a major terrorist attack on U.S. soil, and for having warned the U.S. Congress in 1998 of the danger posed by Osama bin Laden. He has been criticized by the Council on American-Islamic Relations and by journalists for what they see as an anti-Islam or anti-Arab stance."

[on_alert247]

Ahmed Abdellatif Sherif Mohamed, 24, an engineering graduate student and teaching assistant at the Tampa-based university, faces terrorism charges for teaching and demonstrating how to use the explosives.

According to officials familiar with the case, Mohamed has been arrested previously in Egypt on terrorism-related charges. He is said to have produced an Internet video showing how to build a remote-controlled car bomb.

See full story:
http://www.investigativeproject.org/