Briton Used Internet As His Bully Pulpit

When a controversial Islamic sect tried to establish a presence at Imperial a few years ago, Ahmad was outspoken in opposing the group but also tried to calm tensions by building consensus among Muslim students, said Mustafa Arif, the president of the Imperial College student union.

"He was the father figure in that debate," said Arif, who has known Ahmad for six years. "A lot of the vitriolic talk he was opposed to. He was one of those Muslims whose views were that Muslims need to sort themselves out before they can deal with who they think their oppressors are. That's why it was such a shock when he was arrested. It just went counter to everything we knew about him."

British and U.S. officials started paying close attention to Ahmad after the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States. U.S. Homeland Security agents said in court papers that they began investigating Ahmad and Azzam.com four years ago.

In an interview for a BBC documentary last month, Andrew Ramsey, a friend of Ahmad, said he was approached a few years ago by the British domestic intelligence service, MI5, and offered money to spy on the webmaster. Ramsey said he declined.

Ramsey said he converted to Islam largely because of Ahmad's influence. He said Ahmad introduced him to Azzam.com, which persuaded him to travel to Afghanistan to help the Taliban before the militia was removed from power during the U.S.-led invasion of the country.

"Azzam was an English Web site for a start. That made a lot of impact," Ramsey said. "An English Web site that covered a controversial issue, which is the issue of jihad. When the first set of images started coming through -- murdered children, murdered women, murdered men -- it has that kind of shock effect, like, 'Wow!' "

Azzam.com struggled to remain on the Internet after Sept. 11, as the U.S. government and private groups pressured its Web service providers to yank the site because of its content. Azzam.com vanished and reappeared several times in different formats over the next several months, before giving up for good in late 2002, although other Web sites still carry some of its original postings, pamphlets and videos.

It is unclear why U.S. prosecutors waited until last summer to file charges against Ahmad. Virtually all of the crimes described in the indictment against him occurred before 2002, and he is not alleged to have attempted to rebuild his Web sites in recent years.

One possible explanation can be traced to the arrest in July 2004 of an accused al Qaeda operative in Pakistan, Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan. A British citizen, Khan was caught with laptops that allegedly contained detailed surveillance information on financial targets in the United States, including the World Bank headquarters in Washington, according to U.S. and Pakistani officials.

U.S. intelligence officials said Khan is also Ahmad's cousin. Although they declined to comment on whether their cases are related, Khan reportedly cooperated with Pakistani and U.S. investigators after his arrest, agreeing to send e-mails to other al Qaeda figures in an attempt to entrap them.

Staff researcher Julie Tate in Washington contributed to this report.