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Federal agents have broken up what they say was an al Qaeda terrorist cell operating in the San Joaquin County city of Lodi, arresting two men, one of whom admitted attending training camps in Pakistan to learn "how to kill Americans," according to published reports.
A joint terrorism task force, including agents from the FBI, arrested Hamid Hayat, 22, and his father on Sunday, less than a week after the younger man was found aboard a San Francisco-bound plane even though his name appeared on a no-fly list of suspected extremists, the Los Angeles Times reported in today's editions.
Hayat was trained to use explosives and weapons and practiced by using photographs of President Bush and other high-profile U.S. political figures as targets, the Times reported, citing court documents.
The suspect, who allegedly initially lied to FBI agents about whether he had received training, had his pick of where to carry out a terrorist attack, which potentially could have targeted hospitals and large food stores, the Times said, citing court documents.
The task force arrested Hayat's father, Umer Hayat, 47, a Lodi ice cream truck driver, on charges that he lied about his son's involvement and his own financing of the terror camp, the Times said. Umer Hayat reportedly paid $100 each month to his son.
The father told FBI agents that his son became interested in attending a terrorist training camp as a teenager after being influenced by a classmate in Pakistan and an uncle who had fought with the mujahedeen in Afghanistan, the newspaper reported.
After denying any involvement, Hamid Hayat told FBI agents that he had attended al Qaeda training camps in Pakistan for six months in 2003 and 2004, the Times reported.
Both men live in Lodi, where family members denied to the Times that the father and son had any links to terrorism. Several phone numbers listed for Umer Hayat were disconnected Tuesday night.
The two made a brief appearance Tuesday before U.S. Magistrate Peter Nowinski in Sacramento and are being held in Sacramento County Jail.
Umer Hayat is charged in a federal complaint with lying about his son's involvement in the terror camp. His attorney, Johnny Griffin III, called the allegations shocking but said his client "is charged with nothing more than lying to an agent," the Sacramento Bee reported.
The complaint accuses Hamid Hayat of training to learn "how to kill Americans" and then lying to FBI agents about it, the Bee reported.
The Bee reported that investigators also detained Muhammed Adil Khan and Shabbir Ahmed for questioning and that both are being held on immigration violations.
Ahmed was imam of the Lodi Muslim Mosque, the Lodi News-Sentinel reported on its Web site.
Khan was a former imam who is leading efforts to build the Farooqia Islamic Center, including a school for children up to fourth grade, south of Lodi on Lower Sacramento Road, the News-Sentinel reported.
On Tuesday, FBI agents searched Ahmed's house on Poplar Street, next door to the mosque, and another house on the 300 block of Acacia Street, about four blocks from the mosque, the Lodi newspaper reported.
An FBI spokesman in Sacramento was unavailable for comment Tuesday night.
Lodi Mayor John Beckman confirmed to The Chronicle that the FBI had made some arrests and served some search warrants in the case.
"Having the FBI issue search warrants and make arrests in your town is always a little bit surprising," Beckman said of the agricultural city of 60, 000 residents. "I'm glad to hear that the FBI is staying on top of federal criminal issues, no matter the size of the community."
Kathianne said:one of whom admitted attending training camps in Pakistan to learn "how to kill Americans," according to published reports.
Kathianne said:Includes current and former Mosque imams near Lodi. I heard on FOX that the two imams were arrested:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/06/08/MNGVND590M1.DTL
Weblog
Lodi, California Mysteries
June 11, 2005
Lodi, California Mysteries The arrest this week of five men of Pakistani origins in Lodi, California, on what are likely to be terrorism-related charges (terrorism was initially a formal part of the picture but was then retracted) has prompted extensive media coverage. The coverage has uncovered some mysteries, which I note here in the hopes of finding answers to.
Qari Saeed-ur-Rehman, chief cleric of Jamia Islamia seminary, speaks about his grandson, Hamid Hayat, during an interview with the Associated Press at his madrassah in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. (Associated Press)
* Hamid Hayat, 22, arrested on his return from what he admits was a jihadist camp in Pakistan, is an American citizen born in Stockton, California who attended school (though only up to the sixth grade) in the United States. That being the case, why does the Los Angeles Times write that, "Apparently unable to follow the proceedings in English, Hayat listened with the help of an Urdu translator"? Perhaps it's because Lodi contains an Urdu-speaking ghetto; an earlier article quotes one Pakistani immigrant, Raja Khan, estimating that around 80 percent of Lodi's Pakistanis are not fluent speakers of English. (In the absence of the two imams yesterday, the mosque service was held in Urdu.)
June 14, 2005 update: Johnny Griffin III, the lawyer for Hamid's father, says the Hayats didn't make some statements attributed to them in the complaint. "For one thing, there was no interpreter present, and Hamid speaks and understands very little English."
* When he was arrested, Hamid Hayat, the junior-high dropout, was packing cherries. His father, Umer, sells ice cream from a truck. But his maternal grandfather, Qari Saeed ur Rehman, founded the Jamia Islamia Madrassa in 1962 (and still runs it), is a leader in the Jamiat Ulema Islam Party, and served as minister of religious affairs in the late 1980s. The family is Pakistani religious royalty so, what are the father and son doing in California as unskilled laborers?
* Hamid Hayat's attorney, Wazhma Mojaddidi, explaining why his family traveled so often to Pakistan, said that it went "on one occasion to seek medical treatment for the mother." It traveled to Pakistan for medical reasons? Urdu-speaking doctors are not hard to find in northern California and they dispose of far superior facilities, so what's up?
* On April 19, 2003, on the way to Pakistan, the same day Hamid and Umer Hayat were stopped at Dulles International Airport outside of Washington, D.C. Customs and Border Protection spokeswoman Christiana Halsey revealed that they were found with $28,093 in cash. What is an ice-cream vendor doing with such an amount of money and why is he breaking U.S. customs regulations by taking out so much cash without declaring it?
* And, speaking of money and travel, here is something curious about the Farooqia Islamic Center: the 2003 tax return of this apparently Islamist institution (it hosted the likes of Siraj Wahaj and links to the Islamic Society of North America and the Saudi Ministry of Religious Affairs) shows operating expenses of $57,544 in 2003, of which over one third, or $20,625, was spent on travel. Wonder why
