Breaking the Buffalo Five: Easy as "A, B, C"

By Josh Tyrangiel

Anyone who has watched Law & Order knows that an arrest is only a beginning. A lot can happen along the journey between suspicion and guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. But in the case of the Buffalo Five--accused al-Qaeda cell members Sahim Alwan, Yahya Goba, Shafal Mosed, Yasein Taher and Faysal Galab--law-enforcement and homeland-security officials can be forgiven for celebrating after Act I. This time, it seems everything went as scripted.

The investigation began about a year ago when New York State police working in Buffalo's large Yemeni community got a tip about a group of men who had allegedly traveled to Afghanistan in 2001. The cops notified the Buffalo FBI, and Peter Ahearn, special agent in charge, put the entire Buffalo Joint Terrorism Task Force on the case. By analyzing travel and Customs records, conducting interviews and doing old-fashioned surveillance, investigators zeroed in on five young Muslims in the Buffalo suburb of Lackawanna--all U.S.-born Yemenis--and three Yemeni-American men outside the U.S., identified only as co-conspirators A, B and C.

Alwan, 29, was the first man the FBI questioned. He said he'd been in Pakistan in 2001 along with the other suspects. But he insisted the group had merely attended Muslim religious training. Mosed and Taher backed his story.

Agents continued tracking the men and got a big break last week. On Wednesday, an FBI agent located C in an undisclosed country. According to a federal complaint filed in Buffalo, C was read his Miranda rights and repeated most elements of Alwan's story. The agent pressed and, according to the complaint, C admitted "he had not been fully candid." (The FBI has rules against physical intimidation, but agents sometimes suggest to suspects abroad that cooperation is preferable to arrest in the country in which they've been nabbed.) C was read his rights a second time and started talking.

The complaint says C admitted that he, B, Goba and Alwan had actually gone to Kandahar and attended al-Qaeda's al-Farooq training camp. The group learned how to use assault and long-range rifles and handguns, and A received heavy-artillery training. Osama bin Laden allegedly spoke to the campers. (John Walker Lindh was at al-Farooq at the same time, but officials declined to say whether he assisted with the investigation.) Once C cracked, agents in Lackawanna confronted Alwan, who confessed and said the five Buffalo suspects had traveled to Afghanistan in two separate groups that spring.

With these arrests, the Justice Department is boasting that, for the first time since Sept. 11, it has detected and broken up an active al-Qaeda cell. Of course, officials admit there's no evidence the men were mounting an attack or stockpiling explosives or weapons. The suspects' friends and relatives insist that there is a misunderstanding, and so far prosecutors have only charged the group with providing "material support" to al-Qaeda, a crime carrying a maximum 15-year sentence. Still, local citizens provided tips, law-enforcement agencies shared information, and people kept their mouths shut until arrests were made. That's a compelling enough storyline to stay tuned for Act II. --By Josh Tyrangiel. Reported by Elaine Shannon/Washington and Simon Crittle and Steven Frank/Lackawanna

With reporting by Elaine Shannon/Washington and Simon Crittle and Steven Frank/Lackawanna