Yesterday I had occasion to speak with several people who have no idea that jihad activity is still going on in the US. They never heard of the Lackawanna Al-Qaeda cell, or the Virginia paintball gang, or the Portland group, or any other. Nor were they ignorant or ill-informed — far from it. But the mainstream media is simply not giving stories like these adequate attention, to the detriment of us all. How different would the average American’s view of terrorism and the war on terror be if all the stories like this one were common knowledge? From the Boston Globe, with thanks to nevermindlv:
A former Boston cabdriver who allegedly admitted training in an Afghanistan terrorist camp was charged yesterday in federal court in Minnesota with lying to the FBI about helping a convicted terrorist get a Massachusetts driver’s license.
Mohamad Kamal Elzahabi, 41, a Lebanese national, is charged with lying about providing support to Raed Hijazi in 1997 and 1998, when both were working as taxi drivers in Boston, according to a complaint and FBI affidavit unsealed yesterday in US District Court in Minnesota.
Hijazi was later convicted in Jordan of the failed millennium bombing plot that targeted American and Israeli tourists in that country.
The complaint also charges Elzahabi with lying to federal agents by denying he had shipped radios and other communications equipment to Pakistan between 1995 and 1997.
Elzahabi, who has been held in New York since his arrest in May, will be transferred to Minneapolis to face the two counts of making false statements to federal investigators.