7 charged with terrorism counts in North Carolina
By Mandy Locke, Yonat Shimron and Josh Shaffer - McClatchy NewspapersIssue date: 7/23/09 Section: Real News
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To neighbors and friends, Daniel Boyd was a father who stopped his work at noon each day for prayer. Dylan Boyd, Daniel's son, was a college student at North Carolina State University who until last year worked as a clinical services tech at Wake Med Hospital in Raleigh. Mohammad Omar Aly Hassan was a newlywed whose father owns a Raleigh car dealership.
To federal authorities, these men and four others plotted to kill themselves and others in the name of their religion. Their activities, tracked by FBI agents over three years and detailed in federal indictments released Monday, tell of an elaborate scheme hatched in a quiet Johnston County neighborhood and non-descript apartment complexes across Raleigh and Cary.
Those arrested include Daniel Patrick Boyd, 39, who was considered the ringleader of the group, and who fought with Afghan Muslims against the Soviets; Hysen Sherifi, 24; Anes Subasic, 33; Zakariya Boyd, 20; Dylan Boyd, 22; Mohammad Omar Aly Hassan, 22; and Ziyad Yaghi, 21.
All but one of the defendants were American citizens. Sherifi was a native of Kosovo and was living in the United States legally.
All seven men are charged with conspiring to provide support to terrorists and conspiring to murder, kidnap, maim and injure persons abroad. Each is expected to have a detention hearing later this week. Until then, they are being held without bond. They have not been appointed lawyers. Efforts to reach their families were unsuccessful Monday night.
Federal authorities stormed the defendants' homes Monday and arrested the men. Hours later, they stood before a federal magistrate and learned they could spend the rest of their lives in prison if found guilty of the charges against them. At nightfall, federal agents continued to search their homes, bringing several vans and dozens of agents to their quiet neighborhoods.
News of their arrests rattled those they had befriended.
"If he's a terrorist, he's the nicest terrorist I've ever met in my life," said Charles Casale, a neighbor to Boyd and his sons who often chatted with them. Casale said the senior Boyd often invited him and his wife to visit. When the two chatted near the pond that separated their properties, Boyd would excuse himself to pray when the sun reached its noon-day height.
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