By Sophia Chang
Kamran Shaikh allegedly also taped footage of the downtown buildings and infrastructure of five American cities – Atlanta, Houston, Dallas, Austin, and New Orleans – the papers reported. Some of the tapes included narration in Arabic, the Times said, and investigators were waiting for a translation.Shaikh, a native of Pakistan who has also gone by the alias Kamran Akhtar, was being held on immigration charges, the Times said. Law officials were unsure about any terrorist links, the Post said, quoting a law-enforcement official in New York that said investigators do not consider him anything but a “video buff.”Shaikh was being held on charges of failing to leave the country after an immigration court deported him in 1998, and on charges that he lied to officials about having a green card, the papers said. Shaikh allegedly entered the United States illegally via Tijuana, Mexico in 1991, then applied for and was denied political asylum, although his wife has a green card and applied for him to stay in the country, the Post said. Shaikh allegedly did not file the appropriate paperwork that would have granted him a green card, though he told investigators several times that he had the document, the Post said.The papers also reported that Mohammed Junaid Babar, a Pakistani-American from Jamaica, had told a federal court that he had met with an al Qaeda official earlier this year in Pakistan near the Afghanistan border. Babar had pleaded guilty to five counts conspiring to provide material support to a terrorist organization and of providing that support when he appeared in closed court proceedings in June. He allegedly met with the al Qaeda official to coordinate smuggling equipment and money to the group, the Times said. He also allegedly admitted that he attempted to purchase ammonium nitrate fertilizer, which can be used in bombs, and helped set up a Jihad training camp, according to the Times. Babar, who attended St. John's University for a year, faces up to 70 years in prison, the paper reported.
