Three People Indicted in Toledo

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Three people from Toledo have been indicted in a plot to attack US military in Iraq. One person wanted to kill President Bush and said so several times.  People are shocked this is coming out of Toledo. It doesn't surprise me at all. Toledo has a quite a large Middle Eastern population; at some point people with terrorist sympathies were going to show up.

These are the men who have been indicted:

Mohammad Zaki Amawi: a citizen of Jordan and US, residing in Toledo until August.
Marwan Othman El-Hindi: a naturalized citizen born in Amman, residing in Toledo.
Wassim Mazloum: A US person (legal resident) who resided in Toledo.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez will have a press conference at 1:30pm.

Reuters is reporting on the story:

A grand jury in Ohio indicted three men for conspiring to kill people and for planning attacks against U.S. forces overseas, court documents showed on Tuesday.

The indictment said the three men -- Mohammad Zaki Amawi, Marwan Othman el-Hindi and Wassim Mazloum -- were part of a conspiracy that began in November 2004 to kill people outside the United States, including U.S. troops in Iraq.

"It was part of the conspiracy that one or more conspirators would recruit others to train for violent jihad against the United States and its allies in Iraq, and elsewhere, and would propose potential training sites for use in providing ongoing firearms, hand-to-hand combat, explosives and other paramilitary training to prospective recruits," the indictment said.

The men were indicted in the U.S. District Court in Ohio and were due to appear in court in Toledo and Cleveland later Tuesday.

U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales will discuss the indictments at a news conference on Tuesday.

According to the indictment, Amawi is a citizen of Jordan and the United States, Mazloum is a legal U.S. resident and el-Hindi is a naturalized U.S. citizen born in Jordan.

They worked with a U.S. citizen identified in the indictment only as "the Trainer." The indictment said the Trainer, who was not charged in the case, had a U.S. military background and was recruited by el-Hindi in 2002 to help provide security and bodyguard training.

As part of the conspiracy, the men researched and solicited potential funding sources for jihad training, the indictment said.

The men were also accused of gathering and viewing training materials, some from Web sites, for use in training sessions.

Amawi was charged with downloading a video, "Martyrdom Operation Vest Preparation," on how to make a suicide bomb vest.

The indictment said the men used code words to communicate with co-conspirators in the Middle East. It said they tried to find and provide various resources and materials requested by the co-conspirators for use in fighting against the U.S. military and coalition forces in Iraq and elsewhere.

The resources included money, training, explosives, communications equipment, computers or personnel.

I wonder if the Terrorist Surveillance Program got them.

Update: Counterterrorism Blog has more information, including the indictment.

Fox News Channel said two of the men who are scheduled to appear in court are to be in front of Magistrate Armstrong; however the indictment says Judge Carr.

WTOL, Channel 11 in Toledo has more information:

In count 1 of the indictment, prosecutors say the three met together many times, going back as far as November 2004.  The three reportedly conspired to recruit and train others for a violent jihad against United States forces and US allies in Iraq.  They also reportedly put together the funding needed for the operation, and collected the equipment needed, and even travelled together to a local indoor shooting range for target practice.

Prosecutors also say the three communicated by computer with an individual in the Middle East, passing information about potential attacks and terrorist training materials back and forth, as well as communication about potential weapons and targets.

The indictment did not say if any attacks were imminent.  Two of the men discussed plans to practice setting off explosives on July 4, 2005, so that the bombs would not be noticed, the indictment alleges. It's not clear if the suspects went through with those plans.

In count 2, the grand jury found that the three had similar plans to kill US citizens abroad in addition to service members.

The last three counts in the indictment dealt specifically with Mohammad Zaki Amawi.  One count said Amawi distributed information on bomb-making, which in itself is a federal crime.  Prosecutors also said he verbally threatened President George W. Bush, and filed two counts for that.  Those crimes are separate from the conspiracy.

During the press conference, AG Gonzalez was asked about the Terrorist Surveillance Program being involved in the indictment. He responded by saying that he feels very good about the indictment and that he is not going to jeopardize the case. According to the indictment, these men communicated with their counterparts in the Middle East via e-mail.

It was also revealed that the community was involved in turning these men in, which included "The Trainer," a former member of the military and who is, apparently, a respected member of the Muslim community in Toledo.

Update II: Counterterrorism Blog is also asking if these men violated Immigration Law:

It is crucial that we restore meaningful integrity to the system by which applications for various immigration benefits including the conferring of resident alien status and United States citizenship upon aliens. In essence these are the "keys to the kingdom." If we made our border utterly impervious to illegal aliens but then fail to secure this system, we are simply providing the bad guys with a way of circumventing anything we might do to secure our nation's borders. Studies that have been conducted concerning the issue of fraud in this critical area have found it to be a pervasive problem and virtually nothing has been done to provide real resources to uncover fraud. In fact, a Temporary Worker Amnesty Program such as the one being advocated by the President will make restoring integrity to this program virtually impossible. (Emphasis mine)

Perhaps now that a terror suspect has been indicted, in part, for threatening the life of the President, Mr. Bush will see the light and end his outrageous calls for that Temporary Worker Amnesty Program!

The Temporary Worker Program is not going to work. It will be huge, unwieldy, and a bureaucratic mess.