Authorities seek a U.S. citizen charged in N.C.-based terror plot
The group is accused of planning attacks abroad.
RALEIGH, N.C. - Federal authorities searched overseas yesterday for a U.S. citizen charged with plotting "violent jihad" as part of a North Carolina-based group of aspiring international terrorists.
Authorities think the eighth suspect is in Pakistan, according to a law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity. U.S. Attorney George E. B. Holding declined to discuss the suspect's whereabouts but said the public should not be worried.
"Federal authorities hope to have him apprehended shortly," Holding said. Holding wouldn't identify the person, and the defendant's name is redacted from court papers.
The indictment said the person went to Pakistan in October to "engage in violent jihad."
Investigators arrested seven men involved in the group Monday, accusing them of military-style training at home and plotting attacks abroad. The men purchased several weapons over the last year, and in June and July, three of them went to private land in north-central North Carolina to practice "military tactics," according to the indictment.
"It's clear from the indictment that the overt acts in the conspiracy were escalating," Holding said.
The indictment names Daniel Patrick Boyd, 39, as the group's ringleader, and authorities said he recruited others to join his cause. Prosecutors have said Boyd was frustrated by the moderate mosques in the Raleigh area and began holding private prayer services in his home.
Boyd's wife, Sabrina, said in a statement issued through the Muslim American Society in Raleigh that the charges had not been substantiated.
"We are ordinary family," she said. "We have the right to justice, and we believe that justice will prevail. We are decent people who care about other human beings."
The Boyds lived at an unassuming lakeside home in a rural area south of Raleigh and had a family-operated drywall business.
Neighbor Jim Stephenson said he often saw the Boyd family walking their dog.
"We never saw anything to give any clues that something like that could be going on in their family," Stephenson said of the indictment.
Boyd's two sons, Zakariya, 20, and Dylan, 22, were also named in the indictment. The others charged are Anes Subasic, 33; Mohammad Omar Aly Hassan, 22; and Ziyad Yaghi, 21. Hysen Sherifi, 24, a native of Kosovo and a legal U.S. resident, was also charged. He was the only non-U.S. citizen arrested.
The seven men appeared in court Monday, charged with providing material support to terrorism and "conspiracy to murder, kidnap, maim and injure persons abroad." They are to appear again tomorrow for a detention hearing.