Department of Justice
Office of Public Affairs
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Saturday, May 14, 2011
Six Individuals Charged for Providing Material Support to the Pakistani
Taliban
MIAMI - Six individuals located in South Florida and Pakistan have been
indicted in the Southern District of Florida on charges of providing
financing and other material support to the Pakistani Taliban, a designated
foreign terrorist organization. The charges were announced today by
Wifredo A. Ferrer, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida; John
V. Gillies, Special Agent in Charge, FBI Miami Field Office, and the members
of the South Florida Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF).
The four-count indictment charges Hafiz Muhammed Sher Ali Khan (hereafter
"Khan"), 76, a U.S. citizen and resident of Miami; his son Irfan Khan, 37, a
U.S. citizen and resident of Miami; and one of his other sons, Izhar Khan,
24, a U.S. citizen and resident of North Lauderdale, Fla. Three other
individuals residing in Pakistan, Ali Rehman, aka "Faisal Ali Rehman;" Alam
Zeb; and Amina Khan, aka "Amina Bibi," are also charged in the indictment.
Amina Khan is the daughter of Khan and her son, Alam Zeb, is Khan's
grandson.
All six defendants are charged with conspiring to provide, and providing,
material support to a conspiracy to murder, maim and kidnap persons
overseas, as well as conspiring to provide material support to a foreign
terrorist organization, specifically, the Pakistani Taliban. Defendants
Khan, Rehman and Zeb are also charged with providing material support to the
Pakistani Taliban.
FBI agents arrested Hafiz Khan and his son Izhar Khan today in South
Florida. They are scheduled to make their initial appearance in federal
court in Miami at 1:30 p.m. on Monday, May 16, 2011. In addition, Irfan
Khan was arrested in Los Angeles and is expected to make his initial
appearance there. If convicted, each faces a potential 15 years in prison
for each count of the indictment. The remaining defendants are at large in
Pakistan.
The defendants are originally from Pakistan. Hafiz Khan is the Imam at the
Miami Mosque, also known as the Flagler Mosque, in Miami. His son, Izhar
Khan, is an Imam at the Jamaat Al-Mu'mineen Mosque in Margate, Fla. The
indictment does not charge the mosques themselves with any wrongdoing, and
the individual defendants are charged based on their provision of material
support to terrorism, not on their religious beliefs or teachings.
U.S. Attorney Wifredo A. Ferrer stated, "Despite being an Imam, or spiritual
leader, Hafiz Khan was by no means a man of peace. Instead, as today's
charges show, he acted with others to support terrorists to further acts of
murder, kidnapping and maiming. 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. Dismantling
terrorist networks is a top priority for this office and the Department of
Justice."
"Today terrorists have lost another funding source to use against innocent
people and U.S. interests. We will not allow this country to be used as a
base for funding and recruiting terrorists," said John V. Gillies, Special
Agent in Charge of the FBI's Miami Office. "I remind everyone that the
Muslim and Arab-American members of our community should never be judged by
the illegal activities of a few."
This investigation was initiated by the FBI in conjunction with the JTTF
based upon a review of suspicious financial transactions and other evidence;
it was not an undercover sting. According to the allegations in the
indictment, from around 2008 through in or around November 2010, the
defendants provided money, financial services, and other forms of support to
the Pakistani Taliban. The Pakistani Taliban, also known as Tehrik-e
Taliban Pakistan, Tehrik-I-Taliban, Tehrik-e-Taliban, and Tehreek-e-Taliban,
is a Pakistan-based terrorist organization formed in December 2007 by an
alliance of radical Islamist militants. On Aug. 12, 2010, the U.S. State
Department formally designated the Pakistani Taliban as a Foreign Terrorist
Organization, under Section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act.
According to the indictment, the Pakistani Taliban's objectives include
resistance against the lawful Pakistani government, enforcement of strict
Islamic law known as Sharia, and opposition to the U.S. and coalition armed
forces fighting in Afghanistan. The Pakistani Taliban has committed
numerous acts of violence in Pakistan and elsewhere, including suicide
bombings that resulted in the death of civilians and Pakistani police, army,
and government personnel, and other acts of murder, kidnapping and maiming.
The Pakistani Taliban has also been involved in, or claimed responsibility
for, numerous attacks against U.S. interests, including a December 2009
suicide attack on a U.S. military base in Khost, Afghanistan, along the
border with Pakistan, which killed seven U.S. citizens; an April 2010
suicide bombing against the U.S. Consulate in Peshawar, Pakistan, which
killed six Pakistani citizens; and the attempt by Faisal Shahzad to detonate
an explosive device in New York City's Times Square on May 1, 2010. Most
recently, on May 13, 2011, the Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for
the suicide attacks that killed at least 80 people at a military training
facility in northwestern Pakistan. The Pakistani Taliban has links to both
al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan.
As set forth in the indictment, the defendants sought to aid the Pakistani
Taliban's fight against the Pakistani government and its perceived allies,
including the United States, by supporting acts of murder, kidnapping and
maiming in Pakistan and elsewhere, in order to displace the lawful
government of Pakistan and to establish strict Islamic law known as Sharia.
To this end, the defendants, assisted by others in the United States and
Pakistan, conspired to provide and provided material support to the
Pakistani Taliban by soliciting, collecting and transferring money from the
United States to supporters of the Pakistani Taliban, primarily using bank
accounts and wire transfer services in the United States and Pakistan.
According to the indictment, these funds were intended to purchase guns for
the Pakistani Taliban, to sustain militants and their families, and
generally to promote the Pakistani Taliban's cause. In addition, the
indictment alleges that defendant Khan supported the Pakistani Taliban
through a madrassa, or Islamic school, that he founded and controlled in the
Swat region of Pakistan. Khan has allegedly used the madrassa to provide
shelter and other support for the Pakistani Taliban and has sent children
from his madrassa to learn to kill Americans in Afghanistan.
According to the allegations in the indictment, the defendants endorsed the
violence perpetrated by the Pakistani Taliban. On one occasion in July
2009, defendants Khan and Irfan Khan 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, Pakistan. On another occasion in September 2010, Hafiz Khan
participated in a conversation in which he stated that he would provide that
individual with contact information for Pakistani Taliban militants in
Karachi, and upon hearing that mujahideen in Afghanistan had killed seven
American soldiers, declared his wish that God kill 50,000 more.
In closing, Mr. Ferrer noted, "Let me be clear that this is not an
indictment against a particular community or religion. Instead, today's
indictment charges six individuals for promoting terror and violence through
their financial and other support of the Pakistani Taliban. Radical
extremists know no boundaries; they come in all shapes and sizes and are not
limited by religion, age or geography."
Mr. Ferrer commended the investigative efforts of the FBI, U.S. Customs and
Border Protection, U.S. Department of State, Broward Sheriff's Office,
Miami-Dade Police, City of Miami Police, City of Miramar Police, City of
Margate Police, and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, and
the members of the South Florida Joint Terrorism Task Force. The case is
being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys John Shipley and Sivashree
Sundaram, from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of
Florida, and Trial Attorney Stephen Ponticiello from the Counterterrorism
Section of the Justice Department's National Security Division.
An indictment is only an accusation and a defendant is presumed innocent
until and unless proven guilty.
11-621
National Security Division
Department of Justice, "Six Individuals Charged for Providing Material
Support to the Pakistani Taliban," justice.gov, 14 May 2011,
http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2011/May/11-nsd-621.html (accessed 14 May
2011).
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
------------------------------------
--------------------------
Want to discuss this topic? Head on over to our discussion list,
[email protected].
--------------------------
Brooks Isoldi, editor
[email protected]
http://www.intellnet.org
Post message: [email protected]
Subscribe: [email protected]
Unsubscribe: [email protected]
*** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material whose use has
not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. OSINT, as a part of
The Intelligence Network, is making it available without profit to OSINT
YahooGroups members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the
included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of
intelligence and law enforcement organizations, their activities, methods,
techniques, human rights, civil liberties, social justice and other
intelligence related issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes
only. We believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material
as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use
this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,'
you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
For more information go to:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtmlYahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/osint/
<*> Your email settings:
Individual Email | Traditional
<*> To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/osint/join
(Yahoo! ID required)
<*> To change settings via email:
[email protected]
[email protected]
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
[email protected]
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
