RALEIGH (AP) ó Federal authorities were searching Tuesday for a U.S. citizen charged with plotting “violent jihad” as part of a North Carolina group suspected of international terrorist aspirations.
U.S. Attorney George E.B. Holding declined to discuss the whereabouts of the person at large but said the public should not be worried.
“Federal authorities hope to have him apprehended shortly,” Holding said without elaborating. 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.” It does not say whether the person returned to the United States.
Investigators arrested seven men involved in the group Monday, accusing them of military-style training at home and plotting terror attacks abroad. The indictment names Daniel Patrick Boyd, 39, as the group’s ringleader, and said he recruited others to join his cause.
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 person arrested who was not a U.S. citizen.
The seven men appeared in court in Raleigh on Monday, charged with providing material support to terrorism and “conspiracy to murder, kidnap, maim and injure persons abroad.” They’re scheduled to appear in court again Thursday for a detention hearing.
No attorneys for the men were listed in court records. If convicted, they could face life in prison.
In 1991, Boyd and his brother were convicted of bank robbery in Pakistan. They were also accused of carrying identification showing they belonged to the radical Afghan guerrilla group, Hezb-e-Islami, or Party of Islam. Each was sentenced to have a foot and a hand cut off for the robbery, but the decision was later overturned.
Their wives told The Associated Press in an interview at the time that the couples had U.S. roots but the United States was a country of “kafirs” ó Arabic for heathens.
It is unclear when Boyd and his family returned to the U.S., but in March 2006, Boyd traveled to Gaza and attempted to introduce his son to individuals who also believed that violent jihad was a personal religious obligation, the indictment said. The document did not say which son Boyd took to Gaza.