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...

A search for answers in the case against the Lackawanna SixBy Mark Sommer NEWS BOOK REVIEWER Updated: 09/09/07 6:29 AM The arraignment of the Lackawanna Six attracted national attention. Derek Gee/Buffalo News It was five years ago today that police apprehended the first member of what was quickly dubbed the Lackawanna Six. Headlines blared far beyond Western New York, as news stories raised the specter of homegrown terrorists training with al-Qaida in southern Afghanistan. Osama bin Laden, it would later be revealed, was present, too. President Bush, Attorney General John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller quickly proclaimed the Lackawanna...

BUFFALO, New York -- A second member of a group of six Yemeni-American men from the Buffalo suburb of Lackawanna was sentenced to eight years in prison Thursday for supporting terrorism. Yasein Taher, 25, admitted he trained with al-Qaida in Afghanistan in the months before the Sept. 11 attacks. "I'd just like to apologize to the court, my family, the community, and most importantly my country," Taher said. "I know I've let a lot of people down." He was the second member of the group that became known as the Lackawanna Six - all young Yemeni-American men recruited to Osama...

LACKAWANNA, N.Y. -- Members of the Yemeni community in this western New York city struggled Saturday to reconcile their identity as a hardworking and vital part of their town with allegations of a terrorist cell in their midst. Yemenis started coming to the Buffalo suburb in 1922, finding work in the steel mills that churned on the Lake Erie shore. They remain a growing part of this city of 20,000. But the community of about 1,000 Yemenis living in Lackawanna has been shaken by the arrests of five men -- all U.S. born -- who federal authorities say aided the...