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| FBI busts domestic al-Qaeda cell in Bufflo... |
| 2002-09-13 |
| The FBI has arrested what appears to be an active al Qaeda cell inside the United States. Agents are rounding up five men in a Buffalo, N.Y. surburb - all graduates of Osama Bin Laden's al Qaeda terrorist camps in Afghanistan. Authorities are also looking for possibly two other men overseas who were the group's handlers. Another member of the cell has been turned over to the United States by a foreign power. Cheeze. Baltimore yesterday, Buffalo today. Is Topeka next? Sources tell CBS News the discovery of the cell and a recent spike in their overseas and internal communications is largely responsible for President Bush deciding to go to alert Condition Orange earlier this week. It is not known whether the cell had identified a specific target in the United States, or how close they were to acting. All of the Buffalo suspects are U.S. citizens of Yemeni descent. All live within a block of each other in a Buffalo surburb known as Lackawanna. And all attended the same mosque. The cell's ringleader, also a U.S. citizen of Yemini background, is believed to be in Yemen and outside of U.S. reach for the moment. Another family affair... The five Buffalo suspects will apparently be charged with providing material support and resources to terrorists. This apparently follows a debate within the White House itself over whether to treat the men as criminal defendants, or as nonmilitary combatants with no charges and no access to an attorney. Sources say the men attended Al Qaeda camps prior to 9/11 and then returned to the United States. That's what would have made me vote for shipping them to Guantanamo... While few details are known at this point, the real significance of these arrests is that the suspects are not foreign nationals like the 9/11 hijackers -- but U.S. citizens. One was naturalized, but the others, we are told, were born and raised here. And that's what would have made me vote for shooting them. |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |