N8
05-13-2004, 08:56 AM
Video records soldier's plans to join al-Qaida
Seattle PI | 5-13-04 | MIKE BARBER
FORT LEWIS -- Army Spc. Ryan Anderson talked with his lawyer and wrote on a notepad yesterday, but didn't look up at the screen showing an undercover video of his meeting near the Space Needle in February with two federal investigators posing as al-Qaida terrorist recruiters.
In the 58-minute recording made inside a vehicle, with about a minute censored for security reasons, Anderson, 26, of Lynnwood is shown volunteering ideas on how to defeat U.S. military vehicles and kill soldiers, sharing military documents, making plans to desert and join al-Qaida, and his reasons for it all.
"While I love my homeland, I believe the leaders have taken this horrible road. I have no belief in what the American Army has asked me to do. They have taken me from my family and sent me to die," Anderson said on the video, which was shown in a courtroom at this Army base yesterday.
"I joined the National Guard because they said I won't go over and fight -- I will fight at home," he said.
But Anderson, a convert to Islam, said he would not fight overseas against "brother" Muslims. "I am very upset about that," he said. "I love my country, but I fear my government."
On the video, Anderson gives Jordanian ancestry on his mother's side of the family as a motivation for defecting, claiming he was sickened when fellow soldiers denigrated Arabs and Muslims without reprimand.
"I believe you are what Americans would call al-Qaida," Anderson tells the agents. When they ask why they should trust him, he said: "If I walk away, I'm wanted in the country. It's called AWOL or desertion. If I leave, I cannot come back."
Read the rest (http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/173124_anderson13.html)
Seattle PI | 5-13-04 | MIKE BARBER
FORT LEWIS -- Army Spc. Ryan Anderson talked with his lawyer and wrote on a notepad yesterday, but didn't look up at the screen showing an undercover video of his meeting near the Space Needle in February with two federal investigators posing as al-Qaida terrorist recruiters.
In the 58-minute recording made inside a vehicle, with about a minute censored for security reasons, Anderson, 26, of Lynnwood is shown volunteering ideas on how to defeat U.S. military vehicles and kill soldiers, sharing military documents, making plans to desert and join al-Qaida, and his reasons for it all.
"While I love my homeland, I believe the leaders have taken this horrible road. I have no belief in what the American Army has asked me to do. They have taken me from my family and sent me to die," Anderson said on the video, which was shown in a courtroom at this Army base yesterday.
"I joined the National Guard because they said I won't go over and fight -- I will fight at home," he said.
But Anderson, a convert to Islam, said he would not fight overseas against "brother" Muslims. "I am very upset about that," he said. "I love my country, but I fear my government."
On the video, Anderson gives Jordanian ancestry on his mother's side of the family as a motivation for defecting, claiming he was sickened when fellow soldiers denigrated Arabs and Muslims without reprimand.
"I believe you are what Americans would call al-Qaida," Anderson tells the agents. When they ask why they should trust him, he said: "If I walk away, I'm wanted in the country. It's called AWOL or desertion. If I leave, I cannot come back."
Read the rest (http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/173124_anderson13.html)