Pakistan holds 5 U.S. men, probes link to extremism

UPDATED:

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. officials said Wednesday that five Americans detained in Pakistan are believed to be the same five young men who vanished from the Washington, D.C., area last month.

One of the missing young men, officials said, left a farewell video saying Muslims must be defended and featuring images of American casualties.

Two officials did not identify which of the five missing students made the video. Pakistan authorities say they have detained five unidentified Americans as they investigate the case. The FBI has been looking for the men for more than a week.

The U.S. officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the investigation.

The FBI has been searching for the men since their families reported them missing and expressed fears they may have gone to Pakistan, according to the two U.S. officials. The two are familiar with the case and spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it publicly.

The men were picked up in a raid on a house in Sarghoda in the eastern province of Punjab, police officer Tahir Gujjar said, adding that three of the men are of Pakistani descent, one is of Egyptian descent and the other is of Yemeni heritage.

Regional police chief Mian Javed Islam told The Associated Press that the men were between the ages of 18 and 20 and had spent the past few days in the city, which is near an air base about 125 miles (200 kilometers) south of the capital, Islamabad.

“They are being questioned and it is premature to say whether they are involved in or planned any act of terror,” Islam said.

In Washington, a spokeswoman for the FBI’s local office said agents have been trying to help find the student-age men.

“The FBI is working with the families and local law enforcement to investigate the missing students and is aware of the individuals arrested in Pakistan,” said the spokeswoman, Katherine Schweit. “We are working with Pakistan authorities to determine their identities and the nature of their business there if indeed these are the students who had gone missing.”

She said the investigation continues and declined to comment further.

Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said the five all left the country at the end of November without telling their families. He told The Associated Press the five are from the northern Virginia and Washington, D.C., area and are all acquaintances. He could not say exactly how they know each other.

Hooper said after the young men left, some made phone calls to their families still claiming to be in the United States but the caller ID information suggested they were overseas.

The families, who are members of the local Muslim community, took their concerns to CAIR, which put them in touch with the FBI and got them a lawyer, Hooper said.

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