Seven Others Indicted in Probe
(AP) -- A Florida professor and seven other men were charged Thursday with operating a global terrorist organization that the federal government says is responsible for the deaths of 100 people in and around Israel.
University of South Florida professor Sami Al-Arian is the North American leader of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Attorney General John Ashcroft said in announcing the federal indictment.
The Palestinian Islamic Jihad is a U.S. government-designated foreign terrorist organization committed to homicide bombings and violent jihad activities. Al-Arian and seven other men are charged in a 50-count indictment with operating a criminal racketeering enterprise since 1984 that supported Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
They are also charged with conspiracy to kill and maim people abroad; conspiracy to provide material support to the group; extortion; perjury; mail and wire fraud; obstruction of justice; and attempt to procure citizenship or naturalization unlawfully.
The group’s purpose is to destroy Israel and end all U.S. and Western influence in the region. The indictment says the group rejected peaceful solutions to the Palestinian quest for a homeland in the Middle East and with embracing “the Jihad solution and the martyrdom style as the only choice for liberation.”
The killings included homicid bombings, car bombs and drive-by shootings, most recently a June 5, 2002, suicide attack in Haifa, Israel, that killed 20 and injured 50.
The defendants allegedly provided financial support through a number of U.S.-based entities, resolved internal conflicts, helped communicate claims of responsibility for terrorist actions and made false statements to immigration officials to help terrorists.
Those arrested in the United States Thursday were described as setting up a terrorist cell at the University of South Florida.
Police1 notes that a number of terrorist organizations worldwide (not only al Qaeda) receive funds from U.S. supporters and operations.
Many of these groups target US interests abroad and remain a high threat to conduct attacks domestically. This threat has become heightened as war with Iraq nears.