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Shock, Disbelief at Fort Dix Arrests in US |
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Friday, 11 May 2007CAIRO ÔÇö The arrest of six Muslims on charges of plotting an attack on a New Jersey army base has reverberated through their families, friends and co-workers who recalled that the men's life patterns do not fit the terrorist label.
"He's a good boy," Faten Shnewer, the mother of Mohamad Ibrahim Shnewer, portrayed by the prosecution as the group leader, told The New York Times on Thursday, May 10.
Six Muslims have been arrested on charges of plotting to attack Fort Dix army base in the US state of New Jersey.
Prosecutors said the men, all foreign-born and described as "Islamic radicals", planned to use automatic weapons to kill as many US soldiers as possible.
Faten said the charges against her sweet-natured son "made no sense" especially that he had for the last year kept up an exhausting routine of work, sleep and prayer.
The 22-year-old Palestinian had to drop out of College and take two jobs as a cap driver and at a pizzeria to help pay two mortgages and support his five sisters.
His mother said that, like many others, he was angered by the reports coming from Iraq.
She suspected that the authorities might have misinterpreted any comments he might have made in this regard.
"Mohamad was like a teddy bear," said Jaime Antrim, the manager of a restaurant in Marlton where the 22-year-old Palestinian once worked.
He recalled that Shnewer had no problem serving alcohol ÔÇô an act prohibited under Islam, and did not break for the daily prayers.
Stunned
The arrest of three brothers of ethnic Albanian background on charges of plotting an attack on a New Jersey army base has raised eyebrows in both the US and back in their home country Macedonia.
"Everybody's shocked from this," said Ferid Bedrolli, the imam of the Albanian Islamic Cultural Center on Staten Island, where they used to pray before moving to Cherry Hill in the late 1990s.
"They didn't look like really they are bad people."
More than 4,600 miles away is Debar, a village near the Albanian border which has a population of about 15,000, the extended family was equally socked.
"I have no idea where this came from," Naze Duka, the suspects' grandmother and matriarch of the family, told the New York Times.
"I don't know what could have happened. I just don't know," said the 89-year-old Mrs. Duka, who visited her sons and grandsons in New Jersey last October.
The Dukas, ages 23, 26 and 28, were all born in Debar, Macedonia, and came to the US illegally more than a decade ago.
They have worked in roofing, like many of their relatives and fellow Albanian immigrants, coming to own two companies in addition to a pizzeria.
The Dukas ÔÇö now numbering about 200 ÔÇö started arriving to America in 1980.
Today, 40 to 50 families related to the Dukas of Debar live in New York and New Jersey and own more than a dozen roofing companies.
"This has to be political propaganda," said Elez Duka, a first cousin of the suspects.
"America has always helped us," said the 29-year-old who recently opened an Internet cafe with money sent by his own brothers in America.
The influence of American +®migr+®s is seen in Debar's restaurants named Manhattan, Dallas and Miami.
"If Albanians are traditionally pro-American, we in Debar have to be more pro-American than anyone," said Mayor Argitim Fida.
"Almost every family here has relatives living in the United States."
The mayor recalled that on 9/11 students had a candlelight vigil in the town's main square.
Experts on Albania and the Albanian-American community were no less surprised.
"Albanians on the whole are so very over-the-top pro-American that this news came as a shock," said Fred Abrahams of Human Rights Watch.
No Terrorist
Khalida Mirzhyeiva, the Russian wife of 23-year-old Serdar Tatar, one of the six suspects, said he was so busy working to provide for his family that he rarely went to the mosque.
"He planned to have a child and a good family," she said in a telephone interview, which was translated from her native Russian by a neighbor.
Tatar was working at 7-Eleven and recently became manager of one of the chain's stores near the Temple University campus in Philadelphia.
"He did not plan to kill anybody," said the 29-year-old wife who is pregnant wife with twins.
"He isn't a terrorist," she said in grief.
"He follows his religion, the Muslim religion, and he cannot kill."
May 11, 2007
Islam Online |
Friday, 11 May 2007
US
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