Free Republic

Sought-after al-Qaida suspect leaves traces in Lackawanna By LOU MICHEL and JERRY ZREMSKI News Staff Reporters 9/22/2002 Kamal Derwish cut a mysterious figure on his travels through Lackawanna. People remember little about the plump, pious visitor from the Middle East who prayed with young people in the local mosque. And he's more mysterious than ever, now that he's believed to be on the run in Yemen, a fugitive from U.S. justice and alleged to be the ringleader of what federal officials describe as al-Qaida's "Buffalo cell." Derwish, a 29-year-old Buffalo native of Yemeni descent, served as the link between the...

Man of the people - arrested By SANDRA TAN News Staff Reporter 12/18/2002 Mohamed T. Albanna, photographed in his Clinton Street store last July, is considered outspoken on issues crucial to Lackawanna. Business owner Andrea Haxton saw Mohamed T. Albanna several days a week. He was her main cigarette distributor and regularly dropped off boxes at her A&E Goods store on Ridge Road and Ingham Avenue on his way home from work. "He delivers them, we pay him, chit-chat, and he goes home," the Lackawanna business owner said. "We talk about politics all the time." Albanna came by Monday night...