RALEIGH, N.C. — A North Carolina man described as family-oriented and quick to help neighbors was recruiting and training aspiring terrorists to wage jihad, federal authorities say, accusations that family and neighbors find hard to believe.
Daniel Boyd, 39, spent three years traveling to the Middle East, secretly buying guns, and leading a group of men planning to kidnap, kill and maim people abroad, according to charges in an indictment released Monday. Neighbors of the family who live in an unassuming lakeside home in a rural area south of Raleigh are having a hard time reconciling the man they know with what prosecutors are alleging.
"If he's a terrorist, he's the nicest terrorist I ever met in my life. I don't think he is," said Charles Casale, 46, a neighbor in Willow Spring who recently got pointers on planting vegetables from the Boyd, who worked as a drywall contractor, and his wife.
Boyd was arrested along with six others — including two sons — accused of being the ringleader of the group involved in three years of nefarious international travel, gun buys and military-style training trips. Authorities claim the group, including an eighth suspect believed to be in Pakistan, were gearing up for a "violent jihad," though prosecutors haven't detailed any specific targets or timeframe. If convicted, the men could face life in prison.
At least one of Boyd's trips abroad caught the attention of Israeli authorities: Boyd's wife told a Raleigh newspaper that he was denied entry to the country in 2007 and detained for two days.
Prosecutors said Boyd received terrorist training in Pakistan and brought the teachings back to North Carolina, recruiting followers willing to die as martyrs waging jihad — the Arabic word for holy war.
Boyd's wife, Sabrina, urged the public not to rush to judgment. Their sons Zakariya, 20, and Dylan, 22, were also named in the indictment. Another son, Luqman, died two years ago in a car accident.
"We have the right to justice, and we believe that justice will prevail," she said in a statement. "We are decent people who care about other human beings."
In an interview with the News & Observer of Raleigh, Boyd said her husband and sons' trips abroad were pilgrimages, specifically denying prosecutors' allegation that Daniel Boyd took a son to Gaza in 2006 to meet with others bent on violence. She told the newspaper on Tuesday that her husband took another son named Noah, who's not named in the indictment, to see Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem that year.
"The point of a pilgrimage is to see the Al-Aksa mosque, the Dome of the Rock, to hear the call to prayer and to make a prayer," she said.
In 2007, Daniel and Zakariya Boyd were denied entry to Israel at the airport in Tel Aviv, detained for two days, then flown to France, she said. The newspaper didn't say whether Israeli authorities gave the men a reason for denying them entry.
Prosecutors said that this year Boyd, frustrated by Raleigh-area mosques that he saw as too moderate, started breaking away to hold prayers in his home. In the last two months, he took two group members to private property in north-central North Carolina to practice military tactics and use weapons.
"It's clear from the indictment that the overt acts in the conspiracy were escalating," U.S. Attorney George E.B. Holding said.
Boyd's wife told the newspaper she knew nothing about the training site cited by prosecutors, and she said the family had firearms because they enjoyed hunting and shooting.
Boyd's neighbors also defended him.
A friend and neighbor, 20-year-old Jeremy Kuhn, said the family seemed closer and more loving than any of the other nearby households.
"If it turns out they were terrorists, I will be the most shocked person in the world," he said. "I think they have seven innocent people sitting in jail waiting to have their lives ruined."
The other four men arrested range in age from 21 to 33. Only one is not a U.S. citizen, but he is a legal resident.
An attorney who met with one of the defendants, Ziyad Yaghi, 21, said Yaghi was disappointed.
"Our concern is that people are rushing to a judgment and there's no evidence that anyone's been shown," attorney Robert Nunley said.
Public defenders assigned to Boyd did not return messages seeking comment, and there were no attorneys for the other men listed in court records. They are expected to appear in court Thursday for a detention hearing, facing charges of providing material support to terrorism; conspiracy to murder, kidnap, maim and injure persons abroad, and firearms counts.
Authorities believe the eighth suspect is in Pakistan, according to a law enforcement official who spoke on condition of . A second law enforcement official, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said the suspect was Jude Kenan Mohammad, 20. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk about the investigation.
Authorities believe Boyd's roots in terrorism run deep. When he was in Pakistan and Afghanistan from 1989 through 1992, he had military-style training in terrorist camps and fought the Soviets, who were ending their occupation of Afghanistan, according to the indictment.
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 overturned.
The indictment said some of the defendants took trips to Jordan, Israel and Pakistan to engage in jihad, but only discussed the results of one of those trips. After traveling to Israel, Boyd and his two sons returned to the United States in July 2007 "having failed in their attempt," according to the documents.
Associated Press writers Devlin Barrett in Washington; Adam Goldman in New York and Alysia Patterson in Willow Spring contributed to this report. link...
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