Is the Buffalo, NY Terrorist Cell For Real?

By Michael I. Niman, AlterNet. Posted September 16, 2002.

On Friday, Sept. 13, America got its made-for-television bust of a real al-Qaeda cell right in the American heartland, in Buffalo, New York. News of the Buffalo raid quickly dominated international media, since it was the first-ever bust of any al-Qaeda terrorists on American soil and the first major U.S. terrorism arrest since the September 2001 attacks.

On Saturday Sept. 14, the FBI held a highly choreographed press conference in Buffalo to celebrate the arrests of the five local al-Qaeda suspects. The room was small and hot, with 14 television cameras and about 40 journalists crowded with 18 government officials into a 25-foot wide space. All the visuals cues were strategically in place, with maps of both Afghanistan and the Lackawanna neighborhood where the five suspects lived posted near the podium. An array of four clocks on the wall gave the time in Baghdad, Buffalo, London and Anchorage.

New York Gov. George Pataki, who appeared earlier at a similar media event in Washington, was the first to speak. While the timing of the arrests was good for the Bush administration, they were also crucial for George Pataki, who had earlier in the week suffered a major setback in his campaign for reelection.

FBI Special Agent in charge of the investigation, Peter Ahearn, when questioned about the timing of the arrests, answered that while there was no specific event triggering the arrests, they went ahead with the arrests when they did, since they were ready and able to file charges after four to eight months of investigations.

Pataki, who had no role in the investigation, grabbed the limelight, explaining how the five suspects "trained at al-Qaeda camps" and heard Osama bin Laden speak. In an apparent effort to continue to ride on his post-9/11 popularity, Pataki laced his repertoire with "war on terrorism" jargon, while calling for additional border security (despite the fact that all 5 of the Lackawanna suspects are American citizens).

No Terrorist Threat

Empty as Pataki's rhetoric sounded, he basically presented the entire case against the five suspects. Special Agent Ahearn, standing in front of the cameras with the taller Pataki visibly towering behind him, reported that no weapons were found and that there was no evidence that the suspects were supporting or planning any specific terrorist actions. The entire case against the five Americans consists of the fact that they allegedly, while on a pilgrimage to study Islam in Pakistan, took a side trip into Taliban Afghanistan and visited what later became known in the American media as the "al-Farooq terrorist training camp." The trip allegedly took place before the Sept. 11 attacks and the onset of "the war on terrorism," at a time when it was legal to travel to Afghanistan, when the U.S. was funding Taliban drug eradication efforts and when U.S. oil companies were still hoping to cut a deal with the Taliban to build a trans-Afghanistan pipeline. While the five are charged with "Providing Material Support or Resources to Designated Terrorist Organizations," Ahearn could not be specific as to what sort of resources the men were providing or if there was any further evidence that would be forthcoming. He did, however, leave the door open to more charges, explaining that the investigation was still in progress. This statement, however, only serves to fuel speculation about the political timing of the arrests, since they otherwise seem premature.

Security was unusually lax at the press conference, despite the fact that the governor and a host of other politicians were meeting to verbally attack al-Qaeda on live television. Reporters were able to bypass metal detectors as they rushed into the building carrying equipment. Despite announcing the presence of a terror cell in Buffalo, the FBI didn't really appear to sense any real local threat.

Hip Hop Terrorists?

On the surface, the five Lackawanna men don't fit any existing profile of a terrorist. Four are native-born Americans and graduates of Lackawanna High School, where one of them, according to The Buffalo News, was voted by his graduating class as the "friendliest" senior. The fifth is a naturalized American citizen. Four have wives; three of them are fathers. One is the son of a former autoworker and U.A.W. member. One is a student at a local community college. They are all registered voters enrolled in the Democratic Party. At least one, according to the News, is an avid Bills football fan. They come from a small, depressed, post-industrial city whose economy and geography was dominated by the now bankrupt Bethlehem Steel Corporation. They hung with a crew of hip young Yemeni-Americans whose hip-hop style of dress was clearly more influenced by MTV than by Islamic law.

So far, the evidence against the men is circumstantial. If allegations are true, they were clearly in the wrong place at the wrong time. At this point, however, there is no indication as to why they might have been at the al-Farooq facility, or what type of facility they initially might have thought the camp to be. The FBI has not yet presented any evidence, argument or charges that would indicate the Lackawanna men constituted a "terrorist cell" as alleged by the Justice Department and countless newspaper headlines.

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