By MICHAEL ROTHFELD
A man accused of collaborating in plans to murder U.S. soldiers in Iraq was arrested in Canada Wednesday in connection with a bombing that killed five in April 2009 and an attack on an Iraqi police station.
Faruq Khalil Muhammad 'Isa, 38, was part of network that arranged to send at least eight Tunisian men to Iraq to carry out attacks there, according to a criminal complaint filed by federal prosecutors in Brooklyn, N.Y. and unsealed Wednesday.
Mr. 'Isa allegedly offered advice and encouragement to at least one of the "fighters," as prosecutors called them. He also is accused of communicating with other collaborators in Iraq and urging his sister to martyr herself, according to the complaint against him.
"Go learn about weapons and go attack the police and Americans," he told her in a May 28, 2010 phone conversation intercepted by the authorities, the complaint says. "Let it be that you die."
About a year ago, he spoke with contacts in Iraq about going there himself, but said in code that he preferred to wage attacks using a rifle rather than conducting a suicide bombing "at the beginning," according to the complaint.
Mr. 'Isa is charged with conspiracy to murder U.S. nationals. Prosecutors are attempting to extradite him to the United States to face the charges, which could result in a life sentence if he were convicted, they said. Mr. 'Isa's lawyer could not be immediately determined.
Prosecutions related to war-zone attacks have been relatively rare, in part because of the difficulty of gathering evidence. In Mr. Isa's case, federal authorities said they gathered email, telephone and other evidence using wiretaps and search warrants approved by Canadian courts.
Last September, federal prosecutors charged Hakimullah Mehsud, leader of the Pakistani Taliban militants, with orchestrating the 2009 suicide bombing at a Central Intelligence Agency outpost in Afghanistan that killed seven Americans.
Mr. Mehsud remains at large and believed to be in Pakistan. In 2009, Iraqi-born Dutch citizen Wesam al-Delaema pleaded guilty to planting roadside bombs targeting U.S. soldiers in Fallujah, Iraq. He wasn't charged with any deaths in the attempted attacks.
Guantanamo Bay prisoner Omar Khadr was sentenced by a U.S. military court in October after pleading guilty to planting roadside bombs in Afghanistan and throwing a grenade that killed a U.S. soldier.
In calls and computer messages obtained by investigators, according to the complaint, Mr. 'Isa and others used code words for suicide attacks, including "farming" - "because they ... harvest metal and flesh," he wrote, according to the complaint "Marriage" and "the seventy" meant suicide bombings, referring to the belief that martyrs marry 70 virgins in the afterlife, investigators said in their court filing.
A first group of four fighters allegedly traveled to from Tunisia to Libya in October 2008, through Syria, and arrived in Iraq in March 2009. Mr. 'Isa communicated electronically about their progress over with a fifth fighter, the complaint says.
On March 31, 2009, two of the fighters committed a suicide attack with a truck bomb on a police complex in Mosul, Iraq in which at least seven people were killed and 17 injured, the complaint said.
Then on April 10, 2009, one of the other fighters drove a truck full of explosives to the gate an Army base in Mosul. The truck exploded 50 yards from the gate, next to a vehicle in an exiting American convoy. Five soldiers were killed.
The next day, the complaint says, Mr. 'Isa communicated electronically with an Iraq-based member of the network, saying, "Did you hear about the huge incident yesterday? Is it known? ... He was one of the Tunisian brothers."
Mr. 'Isa is accused of advising another fighter, who was worried about his family, not to leave a will and to delete all the files from his computer, the complaint says. "Don't leave one character of information or anything behind," he said, according to the court filing. "Don't leave any trace."
--Evan Perez contributed to this article.
Replies
MR. nutcase isa
needs to be be caught and have his manhood removed this guy does not deserve to reproduce or anything else. When he is tried and found guilty put him in with the general population of the prison let the prisoners take care of him, after all they may have committed some pretty bad crimes but they are still Americans and will still defend this country even if they are in jail. People like this should not be allowed to do anything but give up and die.