July 29th, 2009 
weldamfm 
Daniel Patrick Boyd, his two sons and four other men from North Carolina are accused of military-style training at home and plotting “violent jihad” through a series of terror attacks abroad, federal authorities said Monday. Read more on this story below.
Authorities said the group was being led by Daniel Patrick Boyd, a married 39-year-old who lived in an unassuming lakeside home in a rural area south of Raleigh, North Carolina. The family appeared to be like any normal family that walked their dog and operated a drywall business.
But twenty years ago, Boyd, who is a U.S. citizen, trained in terrorist camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan and fought against the Soviets for three years before his return to the United States.
An indictment released Monday didn’t detail the terrorist plans or targets overseas, but it claims some of the defendants traveled to Israel in 2007 with the intent of waging “violent jihad” and returned home without success.
“These charges hammer home the point that terrorists and their supporters are not confined to the remote regions of some far away land but can grow and fester right here at home,” U.S. Attorney George E.B. Holding said. He would not give details of the alleged plots beyond what was in a news release and indictment.
The seven men appeared in a Raleigh court on Monday, charged with providing material support to terrorism. If convicted, they could face life in prison. Court documents charged that Boyd, also known as ‘Saifullah,’ encouraged others to engage in jihad.
Boyd and his brother were convicted of bank robbery in Pakistan back in 1991, and were accused of carrying identification showing they belonged to the radical Afghan guerrilla group, Hezb-e-Islami, or Party of Islam. Both brothers were sentenced to have a foot and a hand cut off for the robbery, but the decision was later overturned.
Their wives told The Associated Press in an interview at the time that the couples had U.S. roots but the United States was a country of “kafirs”—Arabic for heathens.
Two of the suspects are Daniel Patrick 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 was also charged in the case. He was the only person arrested who was not a U.S. citizen.
The wife of a North Carolina man charged with plotting violent jihad says they are an “ordinary family” and care about other human begins.
Sabrina Boyd said in a statement issued through the Muslim American Society in Raleigh that the charges against her husband, 39-year-old Daniel Patrick Boyd, have not been proven.
The seven men appeared in court in Raleigh on Monday, charged with providing material support to terrorism and “conspiracy to murder, kidnap, maim and injure persons abroad.” They’re scheduled to appear again Thursday for a detention hearing.
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