US charges six with aiding Pakistani Taliban

Pakistani soldiers patrol  in Islamabad © AFP/File Farooq Naeem

AFP

MIAMI (AFP) – Members of a Pakistani American family were arrested Saturday on charges they created a fundraising network to buy guns for the Pakistani Taliban, US authorities said.

Hafiz Khan, a 76-year-old imam of a Miami mosque, two of his sons, his daughter, his grandson, and another man were indicted on charges including providing “material support” to a foreign terrorist organization.

“Members of the conspiracy created a network for the flow of money from inside the United States to Pakistan for the benefit of the Pakistani Taliban, and its supporters,” the federal indictment said.
The network they established involved wire transfers and bank withdrawals of more than $46,000, according to the four-count indictment.

Khan and his son Izhar Khan, 24, were arrested in Florida, while a second son, 37-year-old Irfan Khan, was arrested in Los Angeles. Izhar Khan also is an imam at a separate Florida mosque. All three have court dates Monday.

Khan’s daughter, Amina Khan, his grandson, Alam Zeb, and Ali Rehman all live in Pakistan and are at large.

Each face up to 15 years in prison per count.

The revelations come amid a period of great turmoil in ties between Islamabad and Washington in the aftermath of the May 2 killing of Osama bin Laden by US forces in Pakistan.

The Pakistani Taliban has claimed responsibility for the recent bombing of a paramilitary police training center in northwest Pakistan that killed 89 people, in an attack it said was to avenge bin Laden’s death.

The US Justice Department, wary of the sensitivities of linking religious figures to terror groups, noted it does not accuse the mosques of wrongdoing. It said charges were filed based on criminal acts, not religious beliefs.

“Despite being an imam, or spiritual leader, Hafiz Khan was by no means a man of peace,” US Attorney Wifredo Ferrer said in announcing the indictment.

“He acted with others to support terrorists to further acts of murder, kidnapping and maiming,” he continued. “But for law enforcement intervention, these defendants would have continued to transfer funds to Pakistan to finance the Pakistani Taliban, including its purchase of guns.”

Between 2008 and 2010, they allegedly used an elaborate system of bank accounts and wire transfers to send money from the United States to Pakistan, in part to sustain militants and their families.

The indictment also alleges that the elder Khan supported the Taliban through a madrassa, or Islamic school, that he founded in the Swat region of Pakistan.

“Khan has allegedly… sent children from the madrassa to learn to kill Americans in Afghanistan,” it said.

In July 2009, Khan and his son Irfan participated in a recorded conversation in which Khan “called for an attack on the Pakistani Assembly that would resemble the September 2008 suicide bombing of the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad,” according to the Justice Department.

It also claimed that Khan, an imam at the Flagler Mosque since at least 1999, upon hearing of the death of seven US citizens in a December 2009 suicide attack on a US military base in Khost, Afghanistan, “declared his wish that God bring death to 50,000 more.”

Two south Florida Muslim groups issued a joint statement Saturday, saying they support any effort “to root out potential sources and supporters of terrorism.”

“We as an institution condemn and reject any act or attempt to support, directly, or indirectly extremism, violence or terrorism in all of its forms, by any person,” the Muslim Communities Association of South Florida and the Coalition of South Florida Muslim Organizations said in their statement.

The groups said Hafiz Khan has been suspended indefinitely as an imam. They asked the public to “reserve judgment” until the case is resolved.

“We would point out that the actions alleged in the indictment are the alleged acts of a few individuals from one family, and do not reflect or represent the Muslim community or the respective organizations,” they added.

© AFP — Published at Activist Post with license