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| Home Front: WoT | |
| Pakistani investigated for LeT ties | |
| 2004-05-13 | |
Federal officials are investigating whether a well-educated Pakistani national who was caught attempting to buy plastic explosives, guns and silencers in Tyler this spring has ties to foreign terror groups. Osama Haroon Satti, 35, was arrested March 8 in a Tyler motel room, where he told undercover agents from the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives that he wanted to buy C-4 explosives and more than 20 illegal silencers. "It's an interesting case when you have someone in this country illegally trying to buy those kinds of weapons," said Brit Featherston, an assistant U.S. attorney and the federal anti-terrorism coordinator for Texas' eastern district. "Then you have a number of Web postings by Mr. Satti that are also interesting." Featherston declined to comment about the details of the investigation, saying the case is "in a critical period."
Federal officials say Satti traveled to Texas from his home in Alexandria, Va., a Washington suburb and the area where most of the Virginia jihad defendants resided. Texas driver's license records show Satti lived in Gun Barrel City, southeast of Dallas, for a brief period in late 2001. He entered the country from Pakistan on a visitor's visa in September 2001. The visa expired the next year. He first came to the United States in 1990 to attend the Rochester Institute of Technology, where he earned an undergraduate degree in electrical engineering in 1993 and an MBA in 1997. He also lived for a period in 1999 in an apartment in San Jose, Calif., records show. Satti posted numerous messages on Internet discussion groups over nearly a decade. An incomplete search of those sites -- which cover everything from music to politics -- by the Houston Chronicle turned up no bellicose or threatening statements attributed to Satti. ATF Special Agent James Parker, who posed as an illegal gun dealer in the sting, said in his affidavit that Satti "was quite knowledgeable concerning the various handguns and silencers he examined." He hugged and patted the agent down after introducing himself with the words, "Show me what you got." "Satti said that if the silencer (he purchased) was good, then he would have the money for 10, 15, 20 more silencers in the near future," Parker wrote. He "indicated he was purchasing these firearms and silencers for at least two customers." | |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |