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Posted: December 4, 2003
The U.S. District Court in Buffalo, New York, sentenced Mukhtar al-Bakri to ten years in federal prison on December 3, 2003, for providing material support to a terrorist organization in 2001.
Bakri, 23, one of seven Yemeni-American men from Lackawanna, New York, charged in the case, was arrested in his hotel room in Bahrain by local police on his wedding night. He pleaded guilty to the charges in June.
Bakri and five of the other men admitted to traveling to Afghanistan via Pakistan in the summer of 2001 and training at al-Qaeda's Al Farooq terrorist training camp, where they learned to use various weapons and explosives. During their six week stay, they also heard Osama bin Laden speak.
All six men, described as an al-Qaeda "sleeper cell" by the FBI, agreed to cooperate with authorities. The other men, Sahim Alwan, Faysal Galab, Yahya Goba, Shafal Mosed, and Yasein Taher, pleaded guilty earlier this year but have yet to be sentenced.
The U.S. government is offering a reward leading to the capture of a seventh man, Jaber Elbaneh.
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