Within days of the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history, a band of friends from the Pacific Northwest decided to join Al Qaeda in Afghanistan in the fight against America, preparing for battle by training with weapons at a rural gravel pit, authorities charged Friday.
A 14-page federal indictment unsealed Friday in Portland, Ore., alleges that at least seven people, including five native-born U.S. citizens, conspired to wage war against the U.S., provide material support to Al Qaeda and the Taliban, and contribute their services to America’s enemies–all after Sept. 11.
Five men in the group allegedly traveled overseas last year in an effort to penetrate Afghanistan from China and join the fight, though it was unclear Friday whether any of them ever got inside.
Neighbors claimed a child living in the Portland apartment of one the suspects was overheard saying that Sept. 11 “was a good thing, they all deserved to die.”
Six of those named Friday were indicted. The seventh, a native of Lebanon, has been in federal custody since last year on separate weapons and fraud charges.
At a news conference Friday in Washington, Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft said four of those charged were arrested in separate raids in Portland and Michigan.
Two men who never returned home from their alleged quest to join forces with Al Qaeda and the Taliban remain at large overseas, Ashcroft said.
“We’ve neutralized a suspected terrorist cell within our borders,” he said of the arrests.
Despite Ashcroft’s description of the group as an American-based terror cell, there was no indication in court papers, or from top Justice Department officials, that the Portland band was plotting violence or mayhem on U.S. soil.
The indictment is the latest in a flurry of charges against alleged Al Qaeda-linked operatives or supporters inside the U.S., though many of the cases lack specific allegations that attacks were in the offing.
As part of the Portland conspiracy, lead defendant Jeffrey Leon Battle, 32, a U.S. citizen, allegedly enlisted in the Army Reserves so he could “receive training in United States military tactics and weapons, which he ultimately intended to use against the United States,” the indictment said. Battle allegedly arranged for an administrative discharge while trying to get into Afghanistan.
The indictment also alleges that another member of the group, Patrice Lumumba Ford, 31, bought a shotgun three days after the Sept. 11 attacks to use in weapons training.
Battle and Ford were among those in custody in Portland. Indicted with them were Muhammad Ibrahim Bilal, 22, a former Portland resident now living in Dearborn, Mich., and October Martinique Lewis, 25, who is the ex-wife of Battle. She also was arrested Friday in Portland. Bilal was arrested in Dearborn.
Still at large and overseas, authorities said, are Habis Abdulla al Saoub, 37, a Jordanian, and Ahmed Ibrahim Bilal, 24, the brother of Muhammad Bilal.
Named as a co-conspirator, though not indicted Friday, is Khaled Ali Steitiye, 40, a native of Lebanon who admitted receiving training as a youth from Hamas, the radical Islamic Palestinian group, authorities said. Steitiye was sentenced Sept. 18 to 30 months in prison on weapons and fraud charges.
Members of the Portland group allegedly decided within days of the Sept. 11 attacks that they wanted to help Al Qaeda and the Taliban regime that gave it refuge in Afghanistan.
On Sept. 29, 2001, Ahmed Bilal, Battle, Ford, al Saoub and Steitiye allegedly were conducting weapons training at a gravel pit in Washougal, Wash. They fired a 12-gauge shotgun, a high-powered hunting rifle with a scope, a Chinese-made assault rifle and two semiautomatic pistols, according to the indictment.
In what later would provide investigators with a crucial break in the case, a person who heard the gunfire called the local sheriff’s office. A deputy responding to the tip checked the men’s identifications and took their names before letting them go, officials said.
On Oct. 7, the U.S. began bombing Taliban and Al Qaeda targets in Afghanistan.
Just three days later, the indictment charges, Battle paid $647.70 in cash for an airline ticket from Portland to Hong Kong, his first stop on the way to Afghanistan.
On Oct. 17 and Oct. 20, Battle and four others, traveling in two groups, flew from Portland International Airport “en route to Afghanistan,” according to the indictment. Al Saoub, Ford and the Bilal brothers allegedly joined Battle.
All of the men ended up in China and tried to enter Afghanistan from there, authorities said.
Money allegedly wired
Lewis, Battle’s ex-wife, helped coordinate the effort from Portland by wiring money overseas, the indictment said. A top Justice Department official involved in the case said the FBI still was trying to determine who was responsible for at least two similar wire transfers.
Back home, on Oct. 24, Steitiye, who already was under investigation by FBI counterterrorism agents, was arrested in Portland on the gun and fraud charges.
In his home and car, members of the FBI’s joint terrorism task found more than 1,000 rounds of ammunition, an assault rifle, a handgun and about $20,000 in cash, authorities said.
When the sheriff’s deputy in rural Washington who had questioned the men during their weapons training saw Steitiye’s picture in news reports, he phoned the FBI and a full-scale investigation began, authorities said.
Frustrated in their efforts to join the war, three of the men arrested Friday–Battle, Ford and Muhammad Bilal–had returned to the U.S. by Feb. 5 without having set foot in Afghanistan, the government said. But Justice Department officials declined to say whether they believe the two men still at large got inside.
After his return, Muhammad Bilal left Oregon and moved in with his sister in a duplex in a quiet, working-class neighborhood in Dearborn.
Agents raid in force
A phalanx of federal agents raided their top-floor apartment about 9 a.m. Friday, neighbors said.
“They came at me first,” said Lina Bazzi, the 24-year-old downstairs tenant and daughter of the landlord. “I asked them, `Did I do anything?'”
The agents told her they were after someone upstairs, she recalled. Some had their guns drawn, she said, adding that Muhammad Bilal gave up without a struggle.
A bearded man dressed in a traditional Muslim robe answered the front door of Bilal’s apartment Friday and told reporters, “We’ve been through a very traumatic experience and we don’t want to speak.”
Neighbors said Bilal spent much of his time on the apartment’s sparsely furnished porch, which overlooks a bottom deck dominated by flowers and an American flag. They frequently saw him leave the home, but few spoke with him. One who did, Ashley Arzola, said Bilal was “a nice guy.”
“I’d see him every day,” she said. “He would say `hi.'”
Most, however, said they knew little about the new guy on the block–a street lined with well-tended lawns, brick bungalows and duplexes housing a mix of families, Arab-Americans and others two generations removed from Poland and Scandinavia.
In Portland, a man who lived in the same apartment complex as Battle said he called the FBI shortly after the Sept. 11 suicide hijackings when the playmate of a 5-year-old boy apparently living in Battle’s apartment reported a disturbing conversation. The child, a young girl, said the boy told her Sept. 11 “was a good thing, they all deserved to die,” said Matthew Hawkey, the 32-year-old neighbor who says he phoned in the tip.
Agents asked Hawkey to watch the apartment but also to be careful, Hawkey said, adding that groups of men who carried large duffel bags and wore commando-style fatigues came about once a week. Hawkey said he ended up taking down the license plate numbers of up to 40 different cars that came to call.
His story could not be independently confirmed Friday.
