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N.C. men plotting jihad?

Father, his two sons near Raleigh, four others face charges for activities

JOURNAL WIRE REPORT

Published: July 28, 2009

RALEIGH

A father, his two sons and four other men living in North Carolina are accused of military-style training at home and plotting "violent jihad" abroad, federal authorities said yesterday.

Officials said that the men were led by Daniel Patrick Boyd, a married 39-year-old who lived in an unassuming lakeside home in a rural area south of Raleigh, where he and his family walked their dog and operated a drywall business.

But court records indicate that Boyd was a veteran of terrorist training camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan who fought against the Soviet Union.

"These charges hammer home the point that terrorists and their supporters are not confined to the remote regions of some faraway land but can grow and fester right here at home," U.S. Attorney George E.B. Holding said.

The seven men made their first court appearances in Raleigh yesterday, charged with providing material support to terrorism. If convicted, they could face life in prison.

Several of the defendants, including Boyd, were also charged with practicing military tactics on a private property in Caswell County in June and July of this year.

Boyd trained in Afghanistan and fought there between 1989 and 1992 before returning to the United States, according to an indictment handed down by a grand jury last week and unsealed yesterday. Boyd, a Muslim convert known as ‘Saifullah,' encouraged others to engage in jihad, authorities say.

Boyd's faith was so brash that, this year, he stopped attending worship services in the Raleigh area and instead began meeting for Friday prayers in his home.

"This is not an indictment of the entire Muslim community," Holding said. "These people had broken away because their local mosque did not follow their vision of being a good Muslim."

Two of the suspects are Boyd's sons: Zakariya Boyd, 20, and Dylan Boyd, 22. The others are Anes Subasic, 33; Mohammad Omar Aly Hassan, 22; and Ziyad Yaghi, 21. Hysen Sherifi, 24, a native of Kosovo and a U.S. legal permanent resident, was also charged in the case. He was the only person arrested who was not a U.S. citizen.

It is unclear how authorities learned of the activities, although court documents indicate that prosecutors will introduce evidence gathered under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Authorities picked up no sign of communications between Boyd and al-Qaida, according to a law-enforcement source who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation continues.

But the weapons that the group is accused of amassing and brandishing in training exercises in North Carolina this June and July gave pause to federal officials, the source added.

The firearms mentioned in the indictment include several semiautomatic weapons, including an AK-47 rifle and carbines modeled after the military's M14 and M16.

The indictment claims that Boyd traveled to Israel in 2007 with several of the defendants, hoping to engage in "violent jihad." The attempt was unsuccessful, though, and the men returned home, officials said.

Boyd was also accused of trying to raise money last year to pay for others' travel overseas to fight. One of the men, Hysen Sharifi, is alleged to have gone to Kosovo to engage in violent jihad, according to the indictment, but it's unclear if he did any actual fighting.

In 1991, Boyd and his brother were convicted of bank robbery in Pakistan -- accused of carrying identification showing they belonged to the radical Afghan guerrilla group, Hezb-e-Islami, or Party of Islam. They were each sentenced to have a foot and a hand cut off for the robbery, but the sentences were overturned.

The wives of the men told The Associated Press at the time that the couples had U.S. roots but that the United States was a country of "kafirs" -- Arabic for heathens.

Jim Stephenson, a neighbor of Daniel Boyd in Willow Spring, said he saw the Boyd family walking their dog in the neighborhood. He said that the recent indictment shocked the residents. "We never saw anything to give any clues that something like that could be going on in their family," Stephenson said.