Is There an Uptick in Plots?
5 men missing from N.Va. are arrested in Pakistan – washingtonpost.com
Five missing Muslim men from Northern Virginia have been arrested in Pakistan and are being held by Pakistani authorities, the FBI and a Muslim group said Wednesday.
Pakistani media reports said the young men were taken into custody at the home of an activist linked to Jaish-i-Muhammad, a jihadist group that was implicated in the December 2001 attack on the Indian Parliament in New Delhi and has been branded a terrorist organization by the United States. Those reports could not be immediately confirmed.
Officials at the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said the men — who are in their early 20s and from the Alexandria area — disappeared last week. Their families approached CAIR, which informed the FBI and has been working with federal authorities to locate the men and find out why they went to Pakistan.
Following on the heels of the Najibullah Zazi plot, I am beginning to wonder if we aren’t catching a glimpse of increased recruiting in the United States. It isn’t clear to me why this would be the case, and certain Jaish-i-Muhammed wouldn’t be the most likely group to strike at the U.S. But, on the other hand, the links between groups and radicals is so shadowy that it is hard to make any judgments from such a brief report.
It is interesting that the original tip-off may have come from CAIR. The reality is that a lot of plots could be broken up if family and friends came forward to report suspicious activity. Again, as with other plots, it is hard to know whether reported details are real or represent a post hoc effort to conceal the role of intelligence agencies.
