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Conflicting portrait of NC terror suspect emerges
By MIKE BAKER,Associated Press Writer AP - Wednesday, July 29
RALEIGH, N.C. - Daniel Boyd may have spent the past three years traveling to the Middle East, secretly buying guns and training for jihad with a group of aspiring terrorists as federal authorities claim, but people on his cul-de-sac said Tuesday he also made plenty of time to be a good neighbor.
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The 39-year-old drywall contractor and his wife were family oriented, always quick to help with gardens and treehouses and raised well-mannered kids, neighbors said a day after the FBI arrested Boyd and six others, accusing the men of planning to kidnap, kill and maim people abroad.
"If he's a terrorist, he's the nicest terrorist I ever met in my life. I don't think he is," said Charles Casale, 46, a neighbor in Willow Spring who recently got pointers on planting vegetables from the Boyds.
Federal investigators said Boyd was the ringleader of a small North Carolina-based terrorist group, involved in three years of nefarious international travel, gun buys and military-style training trips. Authorities claim the group, including an eighth suspect believed to be in Pakistan, were gearing up for a "violent jihad," though prosecutors haven't detailed any specific targets or timeframe.
Prosecutors said Boyd received terrorist training in Pakistan and brought the teachings back to North Carolina, where over the past three years he recruited followers willing to die as martyrs waging jihad _ the Arabic word for holy war.
Frustrated by Raleigh-area mosques that were too moderate, Boyd started breaking away this year to hold prayers in his home, prosecutors said. In the last two months, he took two group members to private property in north-central North Carolina to practice military tactics and use weapons.
"It's clear from the indictment that the overt acts in the conspiracy were escalating," U.S. Attorney George E.B. Holding said.
At his home, though, Boyd's neighbors and family defended him.
Boyd's wife, Sabrina, vowed that he was part of an "ordinary family" and urged the public not to rush to judgment. Boyd's sons Zakariya, 20, and Dylan, 22, were also named in the indictment.
"We have the right to justice, and we believe that justice will prevail," she said in a statement. "We are decent people who care about other human beings."
A friend and neighbor, 20-year-old Jeremy Kuhn, said the family seemed closer and more loving than any of the other nearby households.
"If it turns out they were terrorists, I will be the most shocked person in the world," he said. "I think they have seven innocent people sitting in jail waiting to have their lives ruined."
The other four men arrested range in age from 21 to 33. Only one is not a U.S. citizen, but he is a legal resident.
An attorney who met with one of the defendants, Ziyad Yaghi, 21, said Yaghi was disappointed.
"Our concern is that people are rushing to a judgment and there's no evidence that anyone's been shown," attorney Robert Nunley said.
Public defenders assigned to Boyd did not return messages seeking comment, and there were no attorneys for the other men listed in court records. If convicted of providing material support to terrorism and "conspiracy to murder, kidnap, maim and injure persons abroad," the men could face life in prison. They are expected to appear in court Thursday for a detention hearing.
Authorities believe the eighth suspect is currently in Pakistan, according to a law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity. A second law enforcement official, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said the suspect was Jude Kenan Mohammad, 20. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk about the investigation.
Holding said he hoped an arrest was near, but didn't elaborate.
Authorities believe Boyd's roots in terrorism run deep. When he was in Pakistan and Afghanistan from 1989 through 1992, he had military-style training in terrorist camps and fought the Soviets, who were ending their occupation of Afghanistan, according to the indictment.
In 1991, Boyd and his brother were convicted of bank robbery in Pakistan. They were also accused of carrying identification showing they belonged to the radical Afghan guerrilla group, Hezb-e-Islami, or Party of Islam. Each was sentenced to have a foot and a hand cut off for the robbery, but the decision was later overturned.
A former CIA official who was stationed in Pakistan at the time said the agency intervened and quickly persuaded the Pakistani intelligence service to help free the Boyd brothers. The former official spoke on the condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak publicly about the incident.
The official didn't believe the Hezb-e-Islami identification cards they had been carrying proved they were jihadists.
The Boyd brothers' wives told The Associated Press in an interview in 1991 that the couples had U.S. roots but Americans were "kafirs" _ Arabic for heathens.
It is unclear when Boyd and his family returned to the United States, but in March 2006, Boyd traveled to Gaza and attempted to introduce his son to individuals who also believed that violent jihad was a personal religious obligation, the indictment said. The document did not say which son Boyd took to Gaza.
The indictment said some of the defendants took trips to Jordan, Israel and Pakistan to engage in jihad, but only discussed the results of one of those trips. After traveling to Israel, Boyd and his two sons returned to the United States in July 2007 "having failed in their attempt," according to the documents.
___
Associated Press writers Devlin Barrett in Washington; Adam Goldman in New York and Alysia Patterson in Willow Spring contributed to this report.
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