Sponsoring terror: Three Pakistani-Americans arrested for ‘aiding Taliban’

Sher Ali Khan, his two sons, along with three others, indicted in Florida.

FLORIDA:

Three Pakistani-born US nationals, including the Imams of two Florida mosques, were arrested on Saturday on charges of financing and supporting the Pakistani Taliban, US officials said.

The three were among six charged in a US indictment that accused them of “supporting acts of murder, kidnapping and maiming in Pakistan and elsewhere” carried out by the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), which has been outlawed by Pakistan and branded as a terrorist organisation by the United States.

The indictment was announced by the US Attorney for the Southern District of Florida and local FBI agents at a time when US relations with Pakistan are strained over the May 2 US raid in Abbottabad that killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

Two of the accused – Hafiz Muhammed Sher Ali Khan, 76, and his son, Izhar Khan, 24 – were arrested in South Florida. Another son, Irfan Khan, 37, was detained in Los Angeles.

Hafiz Khan is the Imam at the Miami Mosque, also known as the Flagler Mosque, in Miami. His son, Izhar Khan, is an Imam at the Jamaat Al-Mu’mineen Mosque in Margate, Florida, the four-count indictment said.

The other three charged, Ali Rehman, Alam Zeb and Amina Khan, were living in Pakistan and are still at large. Amina Khan is the daughter of Hafiz Khan and her son, Alam Zeb, is his grandson.

“The defendants sought to aid the Pakistani Taliban’s fight against the Pakistani government,” said the indictment released by the US attorney’s office in Miami. 

Published in The Express Tribune, May 15^th, 2011.