Lackawanna Six: 6 Friends Prosecuted for Supporting Al-Qaeda - Research Paper

Introduction

The Lackawanna Six, or the Buffalo Six, as some people call them, is a cocoon of six American friends with Arabian descent, who grew up in Lackawanna, New York, as Muslim community childhood friends, since they played football and went to school together as children. They were brought to prosecution after being found guilty of materially supporting the Al-Qaeda terror group in December of 2003. The charges relayed against the six friends were because, they had joined an Al-Qaeda training way back in 2001, in Afghanistan (Carafano, 2007).

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The Buffalo Six who were inclusive of Mukhtar al-Bakri, Yahya Goba, Yaseinn Taher, Sahim Alwan, Faysal Galab and Shafal Mosed, received a jail term that lasted between seven and ten years. This came after they were found guilty of being part of Al-Qaeda terror group, as revealed by Mukhtar al-Bakri who was interrogated by the FBI after he was arrested by the Bahraini police (Satkalmi, 2005). The Lackawanna Six were, therefore, arrested when they had returned to the United States of America from training in Afghanistan in 2003.

The group had their seventh friend by the name of Jaber Elbaneh, who never returned to New York after the arrest of the other six friends. He is a fugitive who is currently rumored to be in Yemen. Jaber Elbaneh later remained the most wanted terrorist in America, and a ransom of $5 million was relayed as a reward to the person might have seen him, or heard of his whereabouts (Satkalmi, 2005). The series of bombings that happened in September of 2001 in the United States of America. After the Buffalo Six left for training with Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, was also perceived as terror evidence that aided their arrest, since it is believed that they were behind those attacks. The same situation, therefore, reflects the present terror occurrences, that have for a while been responsible for an enormous number of terror-related deaths, as registered in different nations of the world. The topic, therefore, reciprocates the Lackawanna Six who were Al-Qaeda members, and the terror attacks they facilitated in the United States of America, to current cases of terrorism around the globe. They are inclusive of possible results of the attacks, concerning the victims and how they would respond to the attacks.

The Present-Day Potential Terror Actors in the United States of America

Just like the Buffalo Six, who were the citizens of the United States of America, and still worked with the Al-Qaeda terror group to enable the 2001 terror attacks, the nation yet again has similar threats of terrorism currently, from the new terror actors. The American government agents are currently reported to be having direct involvement with terrorists. The agents, therefore, take part in plotting serious terrorist attacks within different states of America. These agents just like the Lackawanna Six, are believed to be facilitating serious terrorist activities in America by supporting the terrorist organization materially and financially (Wilner & Dubouloz, 2010). They help the terrorists by supplying weapons to them. The weapons are majorly powerful guns, as well as nuclear explosives that are meant to kill millions of Americans. They also provide terrorists with raw materials for building such powerful killing machines. These raw materials are secretly transported from within borders of the United States of America to other nations where the terrorists are located, or to the areas within America, where the plotting of the attacks is being planned.

These American government agents also aid terrorism by helping terrorists with recruiting American individuals into jihadism. The recruits are usually jobless people who are majorly comprised of the broke, hopeless youths. The newly recruited jihad members are then trained on how to fight the jihad 'holy war', with their beliefs influenced on what awaits them when they happen to die during the act of jihadism. The recruits then adopt the belief of jihadism, then strictly and rigidly stick to it. They are then given large amounts of money that they give to their family members before they leave for their mission. The agents also encourage terrorism in the nation by providing terrorists with information. The information they convey to the terrorist organizations is majorly related to the area layout of the states and cities of America, as well as the population of people that these places have. The geographical information helps the terrorists to know where and how to attack, to hit their target successfully without killing their fellow Muslim believers. It also enables them to execute untraceable attacks.

These government agents are usually American immigrants who later acquire U.S citizenship. They could also be original American citizens within the Muslim community, who have inculcated the culture of jihadism in them, and have for a long time lived strictly to it. Recent reports have revealed that most of them have Arabian decent and or accent, who in most cases participate in the killings for specific reasons like vengeance (Mohammed, 2015). The agents are therefore terrorists within the United States of America. Thus, America is somewhat her enemy.

The Likely Outcomes of Terrorist Attacks Perpetrated by the Potential Terror-Actors

These potential actors of terrorism can anytime facilitate sudden terror attacks anywhere in the United States of America. These attacks would lead to negative outcomes for America as a whole nation. The attacks would lead to a massive loss of innocent lives. Many innocent Americans including children, women, and men would perish in case of such attacks. It is because, these attacks are always plotted for execution in the busiest cities and states, which are densely populated all the time. The whole nation would, therefore, receive a severe blow to her innocent citizens. Such terror attacks would also lead to permanent or temporary maiming of the survived victims caught in the incidences. The American hospitals would then register large numbers of admissions of the injured victims. The attacks would see some victims losing limbs, eye-sight or their ability to hear. It would then imply that such adult victims would never be able to work again, to provide for their families and make the daily ends meet. It would thus, be the beginning of poverty in the families of the victims. These terror attacks would also lead to financial losses to the owners of demolished investments and other forms of businesses. It is because, such business premises owned by private and even the government organizations, would experience destruction by fire or explosions especially in terror attacks executed by the use of nuclear bombings (Mohammed, 2015). The American government would also be a victim of such attacks because the possible outcome is that, it would have her income generating and economy shaping industries and factories razed to the ground. The action would either be by mechanical destruction through fire or explosions, as well as because of her few high-skilled production expertise are among the dead victims of the attacks. The country would thus incur economic losses since; it would take her a lot of time to rebuild the demolished pillars that shape the economy.

What Such Attacks Would Look Like in the World of Today

Such terror attacks would portray a lot of images of the United States of America, to the world of today in that: America would be regarded to as a terror hot-bed nation that terrorizes herself, as well as being her enemy to social, political, and economic prosperity. This would be because, the terrorists involved in such merciless massive killings and demolition of American property, are her citizens. It would thus taint the image of the United States of America to the whole world at large.

The nation would also be viewed as one that nourishes terrorists and their activities. The reason being is that these terrorists thrive from childhood to adulthood in the country, after which they successfully and secretly plot serious terror attacks, which eventually see many innocent Americans dead and a lot of property destroyed (Mohammed, 2015). Americans would, therefore, look like failures towards dealing with terrorism that thrives every day in the country.

American citizens would portray the members of the government as traitors, whom instead of protecting the innocent public against such attacks, they host the terrorists themselves. It would be because it is the government agents who terrorize on their innocent members of the nation instead of protecting them.

The United States of America would consequently, due to such attacks, scare away foreign investors, as well as tourists who would have considered the country for such economic-friendly activities (Mohammed, 2015). The nation would, therefore, be degraded socially, politically and economically as it would as well lose trust from its foreign business counterparts, a factor that would make the country to lose economic benefits associated with business linkages with foreign nations and trading blocks or unions.

The Perpetrators of the Terror Attacks in the United States of America

As discussed above, the perpetrators of the terror attacks in the nation, are the American government agents who take part in the plotting of a series of terror attacks (Niman, 2004). The agents participate in the plotting of such attacks by providing, jobless and hopeless American citizens as new recruits, financial support, secret American information that aids easier planning of the attacks, material support in terms of weapons or raw materials that aids in making of weapons, to the terrorist organization that they are linked to. Those government agents are believed to be mostly Muslims with Arabian decent or accent, American Muslim immigrants or typical Americans who converted into Muslim with the agenda of being terrorists. The recent reports revealed that these agents participate in terrorism with the motive of vengeance or satisfying the principles of jihadism.

The agents are believed to be perpetrating the plotting of terror attacks in the United States of America, on behalf of the Al-Qaeda terror group whose headquarters is based in the Middle-East nation of Afghanistan. These government agents act as the links that provide American classified government information to the Al-Qaeda terror group, to facilitate their plotted attacks in America. These agents other than being Al-Qaeda informants, they as well ensure that secret terror operations and planning, are held on American soils without being noticed. These government agents also guarantee secret invasion of the nation by the Al-Qaeda terrorists and then hosts them as members of their families.

Operation of Al-Qaeda Terror Group

The Afghanistan-based terror group is operated and controlled indirectly from the United States of America by these government agents (McNeill, Carafano & Zuckerman, 2010). The agents are enabling the operation and control of the terror group since they supply it with financial support, training skills, and recruits, as well as the weapons. These agents are involved in the indirect secret support of the Al-Qaeda within the borders of America because they are inspired by the principles of jihadism that they respect and have adhered to for a very long time. They are thus strict to it and ensures that they plot the terror attacks by the rules of jihadism. For they believe that they are assured of a good afterlife if they happen to die in the jihad 'holy war', and that is dependent on how many Non-Muslims they kill during their attacks.

Results of Such Terror Attacks

The terror attacks perpetrated by such potential terror actors would yield negative results to the United States of America (McNeill, Carafano & Zuckerman, 2010). Like...