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Maryland man charged with aiding Muslim extremist group making war on US

NY Times:

A Maryland man who federal authorities say served as a research assistant to a controversial Muslim leader in the Washington area has been charged with providing equipment and support to a banned terrorist group in Pakistan.

But a lawyer for the man, Ali Asad Chandia, said the charges amounted to guilt by association.

Mr. Chandia, 28, is the latest in a string of young Muslim men charged in the so-called Virginia jihad case. Ten people have been convicted in the case in connection with what federal authorities say was a plot to wage war against Americans overseas by aiding a terrorist group in Pakistan called Lashkar-e-Taiba.

Prosecutors say the young men convicted in the case underwent training - in part by playing paintball in rural Virginia - to provide military aid overseas in defense of Islam. Some Muslim leaders in Northern Virginia refer to the prosecution derisively as "the paintball case," insisting that the men were guilty of little more than playing games and speaking out against American foreign policy.

Mr. Chandia was arrested Thursday evening at his home in College Park, Md., the Justice Department said. A federal indictment against him says he had been a personal assistant to Ali al-Timimi, a Muslim leader and scholar in Northern Virginia who was sentenced to life in prison in July for inciting his followers to violence.

The indictment says Mr. Chandia helped Mr. Timimi schedule appearances and speaking engagements and research Islamic subjects. In a meeting on Sept. 16, 2001, at the home of another defendant in the Virginia case, Mr. Timimi reportedly told other followers that "it was compulsory to assist Afghanistan in jihad against the expected U.S. military invasion," the indictment says.

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This case suggest the jihadis are having a hard time establishing a presence in the US.