Pakistan detains five Americans in a raid tied to militants

Washington, Dec.10 (ANI): Five young Muslim American persons from the Washington suburbs, who disappeared late last month, have been detained in Pakistan on Wednesday, during a police raid on a house linked to a militant group, American and Pakistani officials said.

One of the men had left behind an 11-minute video calling for the defense of Muslims in conflicts with the West and suggesting that "young Muslims have to do something," said one person who had seen the video, describing it as a farewell of sorts.

The five young men were detained at a house in Sargodha in Punjab Province that was occupied by Khalid Farooq, the father of one of the young men, Umer Farooq, a NewYork times report stated an official familiar with the case.

The elder Mr. Farooq is believed to have ties to Jaish-e-Muhammad, a banned Pakistani militant group, a government official said.

Pakistani news reports also said security officials linked the house to the militant group.

The men, ranging in age from the late teens to early 20s, were not accused of any crime; their intent remained mysterious, and both American and Pakistani officials emphasized that they were still gathering facts.

One of the men, Ramy Zamzam, 22, is a dental student at Howard University, where he received an undergraduate degree this year with a major in biology and chemistry, according to his Facebook page.

But their disappearance and resurfacing in Pakistan came amid broad concern in the United States about a rash of terrorism cases that appeared to be homegrown.

Nihad Awad, national executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, an advocacy group that is working with the families of the young men, cautioned against hasty conclusions about the episode during a news conference in Washington with other Muslim leaders. (ANI)