Al Qaeda cell in Lackawanna, New York, whose members were arrested in September 2002
All six of those arrested pled guilty to terrorism-related charges.
The Lackawanna Six (a.k.a. the Buffalo Six) was a cell of al Qaeda terrorists of Yemeni heritage arrested in Lackawanna, New York, near Buffalo, in September 2002. American citizens by birth, all six are natives of Lackawanna and its community of approximately 3,000 Yemeni Muslims.
The terrorists had traveled to Afghanistan during 2001. By their own admission, each of them, while there, attended the Al-Farooq al Qaeda training camp near Kandahar, where they practiced with weapons and were present during a visit and speech by Osama bin Laden.
The man who recruited the six cell members, Kamal Derwish, was assassinated by the Central Intelligence Agency in Yemen.
The members of the Lackawanna Six were Muktar Al-Bakri, Sahim A. Alwan, Faysal Galab, Yahya A. Goba, Shafal Mosed, and Yasein Taher. All were in their twenties at the time of their arrests. All pled guilty to terrorism-related charges, and five were sentenced to various prison terms for single counts of "providing support or resources to a foreign terrorist organization." U.S. prosecutors indicated that the defendants had provided detailed information about al Qaeda members, training and methods.
A seventh suspected cell member, Jaber Elbaneh, remains at large after taking part in a successful group prison escape in Yemen.
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