'Surreal' arrests in Pakistan disrupt close family, Muslim community

By Annie Gowen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, March 10, 2010; B01

Talha Chaudhry says his brother gave little hint of his intentions the weekend he disappeared.

The two had gone to lunch that Friday at a fried chicken restaurant in Springfield to celebrate the Muslim holiday Eid, the end of Ramadan. Umar, 24, a George Mason University student, told his younger brother he was going to spend the weekend in Baltimore with a friend. Great! Talha thought. Their parents were away, so Talha had their Fairfax home all to himself -- a rare occurrence.

It wasn't until that Monday, when Umar failed to show up for work at the family business, that Talha began to worry. Texts and calls went unanswered. That evening, he dialed the friend's cellphone number. The sound he heard floored him.

It was an international dial tone. Then, no answer.

He hung up and paced in circles. How could this be? Would his brother have left the country without telling his family? What was going on?

About a week later, he got his answer. Umar Chaudhry and four of his closest friends -- members of his youth group at a Fairfax County mosque -- were arrested by Pakistani authorities, suspected of traveling overseas to join al-Qaeda and carry out terrorist attacks. Pakistani authorities have recommended criminal charges against the men in that country, charges that lawyers involved in the case say could come as early as Wednesday. The arrests of the young men in December roiled the local Muslim community and left friends and family members in the United States scrambling for answers. Families of the men -- Chaudhry; Howard University dental student Ramy Zamzam, 22; former Virginia Commonwealth University business student Ahmed A. Minni, 20; and Fairfax County residents Waqar Khan, 22, and Aman Hassan Yemer, 18 -- are cooperating with authorities but have said little publicly until now.

Talha Chaudhry, 22, is the first relative to speak out about the young men, whose attorney claimed in court in January that they had gone overseas to "help the homeless Muslims," not wage jihad. His parents, who had gone to Pakistan on an extended vacation last fall to find Umar a wife, have yet to return to the United States.

Talha Chaudhry says he's mystified about how the five boys he grew up with could have transformed from young students -- who spent their time praying, trying to avoid alcohol and girls and playing FIFA Soccer on Xbox -- into suspected jihadists. All in a matter of months.

Umar "was a gullible-type kid," Chaudhry says. "They were all gullible."

Talha Chaudhry is slight and intense, with spiky hair and hip T-shirt and jeans. In a three-hour discussion this weekend at a sandwich shop in Alexandria, he clearly was still reeling from the loss of four close friends and a brother he both loved and fiercely competed with -- both in life and in sports such as volleyball and tennis. He agreed to be interviewed but declined to be photographed.

"I lost five brothers," Chaudhry says. "It's so shocking. I can't get to my emotions on that. It's still like a dream. It's surreal."

Chaudhry's family immigrated to the United States from the Sargodha region of Pakistan when he was 4 and his brother 6. Theirs was a typical immigrant story; the family lived in a series of modest homes in the Alexandria section of Fairfax County as their father, Khalid Farooq Chaudhry, worked his way up from a gas station attendant to a cabdriver to a paralegal.

The boys shared video games and collected Marvel comics cards and baseball cards -- Orioles star Cal Ripken Jr. was a favorite. Ultimately, they ended up living on a dead-end street next to the tiny mosque, the ICNA Center, where they prayed regularly.

The Chaudhrys became close to the other Muslim youths in their neighborhood, including the four other suspects. All but one attended West Potomac High School. Khan attended Mount Vernon High School.

With parents who frowned on dating, and alcohol and smoking forbidden, sports became a central focus of their lives.

They played volleyball and table tennis at local recreation centers and stayed up until 2 and 3 a.m., playing soccer against Latino children on the fields of Walt Whitman Middle School. Umar bought a $25 racket and taught himself and his younger brother tennis, ultimately becoming a star high school player.

Or they would have "chill sessions" at the mosque, soul-searching over pizza and soda. Chaudhry says that while the members of the youth group sometimes expressed concern or confusion from a "humanistic perspective" about the fighting in Afghanistan or Iraq, there was nothing that seemed violent or extreme. They were torn between conflicting identities, common for children of immigrants.

"I'm an American, a Muslim and a Pakistani," explains Chaudhry, who repairs computers and runs an export business. "It's who I am. It's hard not to think about it -- my own race being killed. Innocent people . . . it's kind of like saying 'My people are doing this to my people. My American people are doing this to my Pakistani people.' It's so hard."

Some of the same issues, authorities believe, prompted his brother to leave the country. He and the other four suspects allegedly began following jihadist videos on YouTube last year that showed violent attacks on U.S. forces. Pakistani authorities believe they were targeted online by a Taliban recruiter and exchanged e-mails with him for months before making the decision to go to Pakistan in November.

They were arrested at the Chaudhrys' family home in Sargodha on Dec. 8. The father, Khalid Chaudhry, was detained for questioning for several days but ultimately released. The arrests have traumatized the close-knit family, Talha Chaudhry says. His parents had hoped to be planning Umar's wedding. Instead they're girding themselves for lengthy legal proceedings.

"They're mentally getting ready, thinking 'This is happening. This is real,' trying to be emotionally ready," Chaudhry says.

After the arrests police found that the young men had brought a book to Pakistan called "The Pact." Co-authored by Washington Post editor Lisa Frazier, the book tells the story of three African American youths from a tough neighborhood who made a pact to help one another grow to become successful adults.

Chaudhry has wondered in the weeks since the arrests how the close bond among his own brother and friends -- who had their own pact to help keep one another from temptations such as girls and alcohol -- could have turned into something so ruinous. He sometimes wonders why they didn't approach him for their journey. But in his heart he knows the answer.

"I'm very much an American kid," he says. "I look Pakistani, but on the inside I'm white. That's pretty much who I am."