Free Republic

BALTIMORE -- Federal prosecutors on Thursday charged a Maryland man with conspiracy to provide information to terrorists. The U.S. Attorney's Office of the Southern District of New York said Thursday afternoon that Mahmud Faruq Brent, also known as Mahmud Al Mutazzim, is in federal custody in New York. He was arrested Thursday in Newark, N.J. Brent, of Baltimore, faces charges of conspiring to provide resources to Lashkar-e-Taiba, which has been linked to bombings in India, from 2001 through the current year. Federal authorities, along with the Baltimore Joint Terrorism Task Force, searched Brent's northwest Baltimore residence following the arrest. Federal...

A former D.C. cab driver pleaded guilty today to conspiring to support a Pakistani group on the U.S. terrorism list by attending one of its training camps, officials said. Mahmud Faruq Brent, of Gwynn Oak, a Baltimore suburb, was arrested in 2005. He had been scheduled to go on trial on April 24 along with two New Yorkers and a Florida doctor. During a hearing in U.S. federal court in Manhattan, Brent acknowledged that he attended a Lashkar-e-Taiba training camp in 2002, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney's office in New York. The Islamic guerrilla group is fighting...

NEW YORK (AP) - A bookstore owner and a jazz musician agreed soon after the Sept. 11 attacks to try to help terrorists in Afghanistan buy weapons and communications equipment to fight American soldiers, the government charged Wednesday. Assistant U.S. Attorney Victor Hou said Abdulrahman Farhane, 51, and the musician, Tarik Shah, 42, spoke with an FBI informant about the plot in Farhane's bookstore in December 2001 "while the ruins of 9/11 were still smoldering." The prosecutor asked that Farhane be held without bail on charges of conspiring to provide material support to terrorists and trying to cover up his...

A Maryland man was charged with conspiracy to help a terrorist organization after he boasted that he went to Pakistan, attended terrorist training camps and agreed to provide whatever assistance was necessary, prosecutors said Thursday. Mahmud Faruq Brent, of Gwynn Oak, Md., was charged after a New York musician arrested on similar charges in May agreed to meet with him and let the FBI record the encounter, according to a joint release by federal prosecutors, the FBI and New York police. Brent was charged in a criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan with conspiracy to provide material...

Sentences Lengthy for 'Virginia Jihad' Wednesday June 16, 2004 3:01 AM By MATTHEW BARAKAT Associated Press Writer ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) - A Maryland man convicted of traveling to Pakistan and seeking to fight with the Taliban against the United States just days after Sept. 11 was sentenced Tuesday to life in prison. Masoud Khan was one of three people sentenced Tuesday on charges they trained for holy war against the United States by playing paintball games in the Virginia woods as part of a ``jihad'' network. Prosecutors said Khan's actions were worse than the other suspects because he also traveled...

Those oh-so-compassionate liberals could hardly contain their glee upon hearing the news that Attorney General John Ashcroft is suffering from a severe case of gallstone pancreatitis. "He has it coming. He is utterly sub-human and evil. Suffer, bastard," gloated an Internet user on the DemocraticUnderground.com Web site. "(T)he world would be better off without him," responded another writer on the forum. "I hope he is in the most severe pain a human being can suffer, and after that, I hope he remains in constant pain with no hope of relief," chimed in yet another bleeding-heart Democrat. Out in Hollywood, comedian...

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) -- Three American Muslims accused of undergoing paramilitary training in hopes of joining up with the Taliban were convicted Thursday of conspiring to support terrorism. Prosecutors said the three were part of a "Virginia jihad network" that used paintball games in 2000 and 2001 to train for holy war around the globe. After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the group allegedly focused efforts on defending the Taliban. Masoud Khan, 34, of Gaithersburg, Md., was convicted of the most serious charges, including conspiracy to levy war against the United States and conspiracy to contribute services to the...