North Carolina trio found guilty in terror trial

Federal jury convicted the men in a trial centered on alleged plots to attack US Marine Corps base, targets overseas.

WASHINGTON: A federal jury convicted three North Carolina men Thursday in a trial centered on alleged plots to attack a US Marine Corps base and targets overseas.

Mohammad Omar Aly Hassan, Ziyad Yaghi and Hysen Sherifi were convicted of providing material support to terrorists, court documents showed. Yaghi and Sherifi were also found guilty of conspiring to carry out attacks overseas, while Hassan was acquitted on that charge.

They were among eight men, all US citizens or legal residents, accused in a 2009 plot to commit what the indictment called "violent jihad" overseas by raising money, stockpiling weapons and receiving terror training.

Three of the men, accused ringleader Daniel Boyd and two of his sons, Dylan and Zakariya, pleaded guilty to terror charges earlier this year.

Hassan and Yaghi both hold US citizenship, while Kosovo native Sherifi is a legal permanent resident.

Boyd and Sherifi had been accused of having conspired to attack Marine Corps Base Quantico near Washington. Some of the defendants were also accused of traveling to Israel in 2007 to plot an attack with Boyd and his sons.

According to investigators, Boyd traveled to Pakistan and Afghanistan between 1989 and 1992, where he received military training and fought in Afghanistan.