A Lebanese national charged with conspiring to establish a jihadist training camp in Oregon has been extradited to the U.S. from Prague.
Oussama Abdullah Kassir, a 41-year-old Lebanese-born Swedish citizen, was extradited on September 25, 2007. He was arrested in 2005 in Prague during a layover when traveling from Stockholm, Sweden to Beirut, Lebanon. The arrest was based on a complaint filed in a Manhattan federal court in 2005, which alleged that Kassir conspired with Mustafa Kamel Mustafa (a.k.a. Abu Hamza al-Masri) and Haroon Rashid Aswat to establish a jihad training camp in Bly, Oregon.
According to U.S. court documents, Abu Hamza al-Masri sent Earnest James Ujaama, and later Kassir and Aswat, to the U.S. to set up a terrorist training camp in Oregon. Court documents also allege that Kassir taught two individuals in Bly “how to kill a person by slitting their throat with a knife and how to fight with a knife in hand-to-hand combat.” In addition, Kassir allegedly told witnesses that he had previously received jihad training in Afghanistan, Kashmir and Lebanon.
Kassir has been indicted on conspiracy to provide and conceal material support and resources to terrorists and Al Qaeda; providing and concealing material support and resources to terrorists and Al Qaeda; conspiracy to kill, kidnap, maim, and injure persons in a foreign country; distributing information relating to explosives, destructive devices, and weapons of mass destruction; and providing assistance and inducement in the development, production and use of chemical weapons.
According to the indictment, Kassir established three Web sites containing terrorist materials, including two terrorist manuals entitled “The Mujahideen Explosives Handbook” and “The Mujahideen Poisons Handbook.”
Kassir and Aswat also distributed a CD-ROM containing instructions on how to make bombs and poisons, according to U.S. court documents. In addition, Aswat is alleged to have involvement in the July 7 London bombings in 2005.
In 1998, Kassir served a prison sentence in Sweden for assaulting a police officer and possessing drugs and a gun. He spent 10 months in jail in 2005 for illegal weapons possession.
Kassir faces life in prison, if convicted.
