A Pakistani-born man living in northern Virginia was charged with trying to help a militant group in his home country, Lashkar-e-Taiba, and making false statements to authorities, US prosecutors said on Friday.
Jubair Ahmad, 24, was accused of providing material support to the group, Lashkar-e-Taiba, "a designated foreign terrorist organization, and making false statements in a terrorism investigation," the complaint said.
Lashkar-e-Taiba was designated in 2001 by the United States as a foreign terrorist organization.
When he was a teenager, in 2004, he attended an LeT training course and at one point he attended a commando course but he only spent a week there because his instructor told him he was too young, according to the complaint.
He was accused of posting in September 2010 on YouTube a propaganda video backing LeT, an anti-Indian militant group with historically close ties to Pakistan's top spy agencies.
Jubair communicated with the son of LeT leader Hafiz Mohammed Saeed about making the video, which included images of the leader, "jihadi martyrs and armored trucks exploding after having been hit by improvised explosive devices," prosecutors said.
When confronted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation agents last month with the video, he falsely denied seeing it previously, according to the affidavit filed in support of the complaint.
The group has been accused of being behind the 2008 Mumbai attack that killed 166 people, including six Americans.
Jubair received religious training from LeT as a teenager in Pakistan and later attended LeT's basic training camp, according to an affidavit filed in federal court in Virginia.
He made an initial appearance in an Alexandria, Virginia, federal court where a judge ordered that he be held pending a preliminary and detention hearing set for Wednesday. He was also appointed a public defender.
He entered the United States in 2007 along with other family members, and in 2009 the FBI launched an investigation after receiving information Jubair might be associated with LeT, prosecutors said. He is in the country as a lawful permanent resident.
