Two U.S. citizens who shot videos of U.S. landmarks in the Washington, D.C. area for potential terrorist attacks have been convicted in Atlanta of conspiring to support terrorists.

A U.S. District Judge in Georgia found Ehsanul Islam Sadequee, 23, guilty of providing and conspiring to provide material support to terrorists and to a designated foreign terrorist organization on August 12, 2009. Syed Haris Ahmed, 24, was found guilty of conspiring to provide material support to terrorists on June 10, 2009. Sadequee, a U.S. citizen of Bangladeshi descent from Virginia, and Ahmed, a naturalized American citizen born in Pakistan and raised in Georgia, used the Internet to develop relationships with other extremists in the U.S., Canada, the United Kingdom, Pakistan and elsewhere. 

In March 2005, Sadequee and Ahmed, a former student at Georgia Tech, met with several members of a purported terror cell in Toronto to brainstorm potential targets for attacks in the U.S. and ways to disrupt the world-wide Global Positioning System (GPS), according to the indictment.  During the Toronto trip, the men also discussed plans to attend terrorist training camps in Pakistan.

A month later, Sadequee and Ahmed discussed a possible attack on a U.S. air reserve base near Atlanta and shot several casing videos of targets for "potential terrorist attacks" in the Washington, D.C. area, including the U.S. Capitol, the World Bank Headquarters, a Masonic Temple and a group of large fuel storage tanks, according to the Department of Justice.  The videos were made to "establish their credentials with other violent jihad supporters as well as for use in violent jihad propaganda and planning," according to court documents.

Sadequee allegedly sent these videos to Younis Tsouli, a.k.a. Irhabi007, who is currently serving 16 years in prison in London for inciting violence on terrorist Web sites.  The men also sent the videos to Aabid Hussein Khan, a British man sentenced to 12 years in prison for distributing terrorist related materials online and encouraging some of his contacts to train in Pakistan with the terrorist groups Jaish-e-Mohammed and Lashkar-e-Taiba.

Ahmed traveled to Pakistan in July 2005 to study at a religious school, attend a terrorist training camp and join Lashkar-e-Taiba, according to the indictment.  After returning to Atlanta, Ahmed expressed regret at his failure to join the terrorists in Pakistan in a conversation with Zubair Ahmed, a Chicago resident who pleaded guilty in January 2009 to conspiring to provide material support to terrorists.

The FBI arrested Syed Haris Ahmed in March 2006.  Prior to his arrest, Ahmed warned Sadequee, who was in Bangladesh at the time, not to return to the U.S.  Sadequee was arrested the following month in Bangladesh and handed over to the FBI.

Ahmed waived his right to a jury trial in order to deliver closing arguments in court.  During his 45-minute speech, Ahmed reportedly read nine verses from the Qur'an in Arabic and discussed the linguistic similarities between Hebrew and Arabic.  Ahmed also reportedly spoke of the shared beliefs of Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

Representing himself at his August 2009 trial, Sadequee reportedly explained that he and Ahmed were “immature young guys who had imaginations running wild. But I was not then, and am not now, a terrorist.”  When pressed about the casing videos, he responded that “any real terrorist would probably go to Google Earth to see live images.”