casper
12-14-2009, 10:42 AM
Five Americans in Pakistani custody moved to Lahore, police say
Islamabad, Pakistan (CNN) -- The five Americans arrested in Pakistan amid suspicion that they were plotting terrorist attacks were transferred on Saturday from the small town where they were seized to a more secure location in a larger city, police said.
The U.S. citizens were taken from the town of Sargodha, where they were arrested at a home on Wednesday, to Lahore. A police interrogation report dated Thursday focused on one of the suspects, identified as Ahmed Abdullah Minni, a 20-year-old born in Virginia.
The report said he regularly goes online to watch attacks on the U.S. military in Afghanistan and that he left comments praising the actions. That caught the attention of militants, and he was eventually contacted by a person named Saifullah, the report said.
After contact had been made, a Yahoo! e-mail account was set up so the men and militants could communicate, the report says. E-mails were never sent from the account, but people would leave messages in the draft sections of the e-mail account and delete them after reading them, the Pakistani police report said.
"This mode of communication enabled them to pass on messages without fear of interception by the FBI," the report said.
It said the suspects made a plan with Saifullah to go from Pakistan to Afghanistan. They gathered in Karachi and left for Hyderabad on December 1. They tried to hook up with two militant groups -- Jaish-e-Mohammed and the Jamaat-ud-Dawa -- but neither of them showed interest.
The FBI said Pakistani authorities detained the men -- four of whom it said were found to have American passports.
Along with Minni, there were snapshots and brief profiles of only four others -- Umar Farooq, Aman Hassan Yemer, Waqar Hussain Khan, and Ramy Zamzam -- all from the Washington D.C. area.
The five had been formally arrested.
A sixth man -- Khalid Farouk, father of Umar -- had been taken into custody by police in Sargodha and was being questioned at a safe location. Authorities have said Khalid Farouk has not been considered a suspect.
Islamabad, Pakistan (CNN) -- The five Americans arrested in Pakistan amid suspicion that they were plotting terrorist attacks were transferred on Saturday from the small town where they were seized to a more secure location in a larger city, police said.
The U.S. citizens were taken from the town of Sargodha, where they were arrested at a home on Wednesday, to Lahore. A police interrogation report dated Thursday focused on one of the suspects, identified as Ahmed Abdullah Minni, a 20-year-old born in Virginia.
The report said he regularly goes online to watch attacks on the U.S. military in Afghanistan and that he left comments praising the actions. That caught the attention of militants, and he was eventually contacted by a person named Saifullah, the report said.
After contact had been made, a Yahoo! e-mail account was set up so the men and militants could communicate, the report says. E-mails were never sent from the account, but people would leave messages in the draft sections of the e-mail account and delete them after reading them, the Pakistani police report said.
"This mode of communication enabled them to pass on messages without fear of interception by the FBI," the report said.
It said the suspects made a plan with Saifullah to go from Pakistan to Afghanistan. They gathered in Karachi and left for Hyderabad on December 1. They tried to hook up with two militant groups -- Jaish-e-Mohammed and the Jamaat-ud-Dawa -- but neither of them showed interest.
The FBI said Pakistani authorities detained the men -- four of whom it said were found to have American passports.
Along with Minni, there were snapshots and brief profiles of only four others -- Umar Farooq, Aman Hassan Yemer, Waqar Hussain Khan, and Ramy Zamzam -- all from the Washington D.C. area.
The five had been formally arrested.
A sixth man -- Khalid Farouk, father of Umar -- had been taken into custody by police in Sargodha and was being questioned at a safe location. Authorities have said Khalid Farouk has not been considered a suspect.