North Carolina terrorist ring broken up, seven arrested

July 28, 2009



On Monday, July 27, the Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested seven men in North Carolina in the United States for alleged terrorist activity. All seven were indicted in the Eastern District of North Carolina, as noted in a press release from the FBI, and in the text of the indictment, "for conspiring to provide support to terrorists and conspiring to murder, kidnap, maim and injure persons abroad."

The leader of the alleged terrorist ring is 39 year-old Daniel Patrick Boyd of Johnston County, North Carolina, who went under the alias Saifullah. Boyd is alleged to have trained in Afghanistan between 1989–1992 and fought in the Soviet war in Afghanistan. Also arrested and indicted were Dylan Boyd, Zakariya Boyd, both sons of Daniel, as well as Mohammad Omar Aly Hassan, Hysen Sherifi, Anes Subasic, and Ziyad Yaghi. Six of the seven men were U.S. citizens. Hysen Sherifi, a native of Kosovo, was a legal permanent resident of the U.S.

According to David Kris, an assistant attorney general in the United States Department of Justice, Daniel Boyd "is a veteran of terrorist training camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan who, over the past three years, has conspired with others in this country to recruit and help young men travel overseas in order to kill". The group supposedly also ran a training facility in Caswell County, North Carolina and was in the process of raising funds to support terrorist operations in Tel Aviv, Israel. Justice Department statements claim several members of the group had participated in, or had planned to participate in, "violent jihad" and "soliciting funds and personnel to support the mujihaden". Among the material support that Daniel Boyd and his group allegedly provided were several illegally obtained handguns and rifles, including two weapons in 2006, one in 2007, four in 2008, and six in 2009.