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| Suspect's mom: Son 'stupid kid,' not a terrorist | ||||||
| 2010-06-13 | ||||||
New York (CNN) -- The mother of one of the two New Jersey men arrested last week at a New York airport allegedly on their way to fight with an al Qaeda-affiliated group in Somalia says the two men are guilty of stupidity -- but not of the sinister plan described by authorities.
Mohamed Mahmood Alessa, 20, of North Bergen, New Jersey, and Carlos Eduardo Almonte, 24, of Elmwood Park, New Jersey, are charged with one count each of conspiracy to kill, maim and murder persons outside of the United States, which carries a maximum sentence of life in prison. Sounds like you could make the case those are terrorist acts, regardless of the IQs of the intended perpetrators. The men, who were taken into custody at John F. Kennedy International Airport on June 5, intended to take separate flights to Egypt on their way to Somalia "to join designated foreign terrorist organization Al-Shabaab and wage violent jihad," according to federal prosecutors. The criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Newark alleges that in 2007, Alessa and Almonte traveled together to Jordan, where they intended to enter Iraq to commit violence against U.S. troops there. Nadia Alessa told CNN that her son went to 16 or 17 psychiatrists for what she called "anger management issues" that surfaced when he was a boy. He lived at his parents well-kept home, where his angry outbursts were common. However, she said, he wasn't particularly religious. "He slept late. If he was devout, he would make his prayers on time. He didn't," she said. She helped him pack for his trip to Egypt, though she said she resisted the idea from the start. Nadia Alessa said she was reassured by a man named "Bassim," who had befriended her son and Almonte. "He said we're gonna study Arabic. I said but here there are many schools. But he say in Egypt, they're better," she recalled being told by the man when she expressed concerns about Alessa moving to Egypt. "Don't worry, I take care of them," she said Bassim told her days before her son and Almonte were arrested boarding a flight to Egypt. She said she believes the man was an undercover federal agent who recorded her son making incendiary comments against the United States and continued to build the case against him and Almonte. "Since I saw him, I warned my son and Carlos," Nadia Alessa said. "But my son say 'Always you say about my friends they are undercover.' " The Alessa family invited CNN on Saturday also talk to a woman who said she was set to marry Mahmood Alessa upon his arrival in Egypt. Nadia Alessa said she met her son's girlfriend the night before. The 19-year-old woman, who said her name is Siham, sat at the family's home, cloaked in a niqab, a veil that covers the entire body and face with only a sheer cloth revealing the eyes.
"We were supposed to get married and study awhile in Egypt. That was the plan," Siham told CNN. She said she moved from Sweden, where she was born to Egyptian parents, to Cairo at Alessa's behest a few months ago.
"She told me that Mohamed got arrested for terrorism and that they were saying he was going to Somalia," Siham said in disbelief. "So I didn't know what to do; words can't explain what I felt. I was in shock and I couldn't stop crying." She said she boarded a flight and arrived in New York a day before Alessa's arraignment Thursday. It was then that she saw him for the first time, through a veil in a federal courtroom. "I didn't have any ticket booked or anything. I just went to the airport and I booked a ticket from there, and I left," Siham said. CNN recently learned that Alessa and Almonte were followers of an extreme Islamist group based in New York. CNN obtained an image of the two suspects attending a protest in New York organized by the Islamic Thinkers Society on June 1. They appear to have been taking part in a demonstration against Israel. One is holding a banner, the other an Islamic Thinkers Society poster that includes the slogan, "Exterminate the Zionist Roaches." The society's video of the event, posted on its YouTube channel, has since been removed. The rally took place a week before the two men made their way to Kennedy airport and were arrested. "My soul cannot rest till I shed blood. I wanna like be the world's [best] known terrorist," Alessa is alleged to have told an undercover agent in the United States last year. Later he said, "We'll start doing killing here, if I can't do it over there." Another image -- from late 2008 -- shows Almonte at a different rally, holding a poster that says "Death to all Juice" (sic). It's not clear whether that rally was organized by the Islamic Thinkers Society. When asked about the rallies Alessa attended, Siham insisted his presence was a show of outrage -- not intent. "But that doesn't make him a terrorist. That only shows how much he dislikes what the people are doing to the Muslims," she said. "That doesn't show he was going to Somalia and do anything."
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| Two men arrested at US airport on terror charges | |||
| 2010-06-07 | |||
| [Al Arabiya Latest] Two men arrested at John F Kennedy airport in New York were charged Sunday with conspiracy to kill Americans outside the country, U.S. justice officials said. Mohamed Mahmood Alessa, 20, and Carlos Eduardo Almonte, 26, both from New Jersey,
During a lengthy investigation, an NYPD undercover officer recorded conversations with the men in which they spoke about jihad against Americans. "I leave this time. God willing, I never come back," authorities say Alessa told the officer last year. "Only way I would come back here is if I was in the land of jihad and the leader ordered me to come back here and do something here. Ah, I love that." Investigators "remain concerned that once they reach their foreign destinations, they may be redirected against targets back home, as we've seen in the past," New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said in a statement. "We are also concerned that should they remain undetected and fail in their foreign aspirations that they might strike domestically, as was discussed as a possibility in this case." Alessa, of North Bergen, New Jersey, and Almonte, of Elmwood Park, New Jersey, both American citizens,
Teams of state and federal law enforcement agents who have been investigating Alessa and Almonte since 2006 took them into custody, authorities said. They are scheduled to appear Monday in federal court in Newark. The two men had planned their trip to Somalia for several months, saving thousands of dollars, undergoing tactical training and test runs at paintball fields to condition themselves physically, and acquiring equipment and clothing they could use when they joined al-Shabab in Somalia, officials said. Both had bragged about wanting to wage holy war against the United States both at home and internationally, according to a criminal complaint. Officials said the two men were not planning an imminent attack in the New York-New Jersey area. Somalia has welcomed the arrest of two New Jersey men who allegedly planned to join al-Shabab. "Foreign terrorists here are an obstacle to lasting peace in Somalia. So we welcome the move and we are calling on all governments to take such steps against al-Shabab and all terrorists at large," said Sheik Abdirisaq Mohamed Qaylow, a spokesman for the Ministry of Information.
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