by Jack Lee
They went about their daily business normally, giving no hint of their true agenda to wage a holy war against all those who stood in the way of radicalized Islam. They were known to their neighbors as humble people, gentle and unassuming.
The truth was something darker. Those arrested include Daniel Patrick Boyd, 39, who was considered the ringleader of the group, and who fought with Afghan Muslims against the Soviets; Hysen Sherifi, 24; Anes Subasic, 33; Zakariya Boyd, 20; Dylan Boyd, 22; Mohammad Omar Aly Hassan, 22; and Ziyad Yaghi, 21.
(Daniel Boyd shown left) All but one of the defendants were American citizens. Sherifi was a native of Kosovo and was living in the United States legally.
All seven men are charged with conspiring to provide support to terrorists and conspiring to murder, kidnap, maim and injure persons abroad.
Dylan Boyd, Daniel’s son, was a college student at North Carolina State University who until last year worked as a clinical services tech at Wake Med Hospital in Raleigh. Mohammad Omar Aly Hassan’s father owns a Raleigh car dealership.
To federal authorities, these men and four others plotted a wave of violence that would end in their own deaths and the deaths many others. Their jihadist underground activities were tracked by FBI agents over three years and are now revealed in federal indictments just released last Monday. It tells of an elaborate scheme that was planned in their quiet Johnston County neighborhood and non-descript apartment complexes across Raleigh and Cary. This has sent as shock wave through the community who had no idea Islamic terrorists were living virtually next door.
On Monday Federal authorities kicked in their doors and took down these would be Islamic assasins and arrested the men who were not injured.
“If he’s a terrorist, he’s the nicest terrorist I’ve ever met in my life,” said Charles Casale, a neighbor to Boyd. Then again, Mr. Casales wouldn’t know a terrorist if he met one – and he did. He actually befriended a terrorist. All seemed perfectly normal to the neighbors.
And when the time came to wage their war nice people just like the Casales could be among the innocent victims to be slaughtered in the name of Allah!
It’s hard to imagine that in this age, people like these terrorists, Americans, could be seduced to do such evil? What is it about radical Islam? Do we need to do more to make sure this form of a so-called religion is not allowed to take root here?
Federal documents released Monday detail a half-dozen trips members of the group made to Israel and Pakistan. Investigators believe the men meant to wage a violent jihad, killing themselves and others in bombings.
Investigators say the Boyds stockpiled military-style weapons and trained at a rural property in Caswell County, on the Virginia border north of Alamance and Orange counties.