Homegrown Terror Cell Sent to Prison

From the Agence France Presse:

Two Americans and a legal US resident were handed prison sentences ranging from eight to 20 years for conspiring to commit terrorist acts against US interests in Iraq, the Justice Department said Thursday.

The convictions were the first successful trial of a "homegrown terror cell" for terrorism related crimes, the department said.

All three live in the midwestern state of Ohio.

Mohammad Zaki Amawi, 29, who holds dual US and Jordanian citizenship, received the top sentence of 20 years, followed by life supervision upon his release, while Marwan Othman El-Hindi, 46, was given a 13-year sentence.

They were each convicted in June 2008 of one count of conspiring to kill or maim people outside the United States, one count of conspiring to provide material support to terrorists, and two counts of distributing information on explosives.

Wassim Mazloum, 28, a legal US resident originally from Lebanon, was sentenced to a little over eight years in prison on one count of conspiring to kill or maim people outside the country, and one count of conspiring to provide material support to terrorists, the department said.

The group began conspiring before June 2004 to carry out their strikes.

They trained with firearms, learned how to use explosives -- including how to operate suicide bomb vests -- and also conspired to recruit others for "jihad training," the government argued in court.

The defendants had also worked to provide materials to a co-conspirator in the Middle East, which involved Amawi travelling to Jordan in August 2005 "with laptop computers intended for delivery to mujahideen 'brothers,'" the department said.