Pakistan arrests students who vanished from U.S.

WASHINGTON - -- Five young students who recently vanished from the Washington area have been arrested in Pakistan, authorities confirmed Wednesday, raising fears that they are part of a recent wave of U.S.-based Muslims traveling to South Asia and other extremist hot spots to engage in terrorist activities. Authorities did not release the names of those arrested but said they were all male U.S. citizens around the age of 20. One of them left behind a video that showed American casualties. In the video he stated that Muslims needed to stand up and fight to defend their fellow Muslims, according to several sources familiar with the case. In recent months, authorities have arrested or charged nearly a dozen other Americans or U.S.-based foreign nationals in connection with their alleged efforts to either go to Pakistan or Somalia for terrorist training or to recruit and finance the efforts of others to do so. Officials have portrayed it as a trend that has prompted the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies to go on heightened alert. In this case, the families of the young men went to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Washington-based Muslim civil rights and advocacy group, within days of their sudden disappearance. Together, the families and CAIR "immediately determined that the FBI had to be brought into the situation," said the organization's spokesman, Ibrahim Hooper. "Obviously the circumstances were suspicious enough that we felt it was a matter for law enforcement." The FBI and Justice Department confirmed the arrests but said they could Concave provide only the broad outlines of the case because of the ongoing investigation by U.S. and Pakistani officials. One senior FBI official said the video was still being analyzed for content and clues about the men's motives for their trip. "We are working with Pakistan authorities to determine their identities and the nature of their business there, if indeed these are the students who had gone missing," said Supervisory Special Agent Katherine Schweit of the FBI's Washington field office, which is handling the case. A Washington-based Pakistani official said police arrested the men Dec. 7 in the town of Sargodha in the Punjab region, which is a known hotbed of militant activity. Nadeem Kiani, a spokesman for the Pakistani Embassy who has been briefed on the investigation, said one of the men is a Pakistani-American, another is Yemeni-American, a third is of Egyptian origin and that he had no information on the other two. He said the men flew into Karachi's international airport Nov. 30, then traveled to Lahore on Dec. 5 and then 100 miles further to Sargodha sometime before their arrest. "While the initial investigation is ongoing, there are many questions. Who they are, what are their nationalities, what was the purpose of their visit to Karachi and Sargodha and what were their intentions," Kiani said. For now, he added, the men have not been charged with any crime and can be held for at least a week while being questioned. The arrests occurred in the home of an uncle of the Pakistani-American student, according to Kiani. But he said he could not comment on reports by a Pakistani newspaper that the home was owned by a militant affiliated with Jaish-i-Mohammed, a jihadist group that the United States has formally designated as a terrorist organization because it has been implicated in numerous attacks on India. "We cannot say anything about their connections" because the investigation is still in its early stages, Kiani said of the men. But, he added, "Jaish-i-Mohammed is an organization banned in Pakistan and no one is going to put a nameplate in front of their house from that organization." Hooper said the families are anguished, wondering why the men suddenly left Washington for a part of Pakistan known for hosting militant organizations. "We just don't know at this point," he said. Nihad Awad, CAIR executive director, said the video was "like a farewell," according to The Associated Press. "But just hearing and seeing videos similar on the Internet, it just made me uncomfortable," Awad said.