While the mothers of the defendants are "in denial" about their sons confessed deeds -- according to Dr. Khalid Qazi, chairman of the Western New York chapter of the American Muslim Council -- the trip to the camp is undisputed. At 3 a.m. there was the wake-up; 4 a.m., prayers; 5 a.m., physical fitness; 6:30 a.m., breakfast followed by nap; 8:30 a.m. to 11:30, military lecture; 1 p.m., lunch followed by prayer, then cleanup. Military instruction: mountain climbing, handguns, rifles, Kalashnikovs, the puttylike plastic explosive C-4 -- used in the bombing of the USS Cole, a version of which "shoe bomber" Richard Reid tried to ignite. Dinner, prayer, bed. It seems that five of the Six -- minus the injured Alwan -- performed guard duty.

Though their trip preceded 9/11, bin Laden was already a dangerous enemy of the U.S., responsible for the bombing of the Cole and the embassies in Africa. And he came to al-Farooq to speak. Speaking to all 200 or so recruits there, bin Laden espoused anti-U.S. and anti-Israel rhetoric. He lauded suicide attacks as a legitimate tool against the enemy and claimed responsibility for the embassy bombings. And he promised more: 50 members of al-Qaida had been sent to attack America.

Taher didn't understand the Arabic bin Laden was speaking, so others told him what he had said. Some things got through to him, however; according to Taher's plea agreement, "one trainee at the camp asked for volunteers to sign up for suicide missions."

Upon their return, the Six didn't tell any of the authorities any of this. They claim to have ceased contact with that world.

But Juma stayed with Yahya Goba until right after 9/11, when he went to Afghanistan to fight the Americans.

In September 2002, assistant U.S. Attorney William Hochul mocked the defendants' pleas of helplessness. "'I was duped, I was going to Pakistan, all of a sudden I was going to Afghanistan,'" he said in a bail hearing. "They get back to the United States -- do they say anything?"

Some see more simple human frailty in their reticence. "I think it would be difficult to come forward and say, 'You know, I was with the most wanted terrorist in the world,'" says the AMC's Qazi. "When you realize you've made a major blunder you don't necessarily go around telling people about it," agrees Patrick Brown, attorney for Shafal Mosed.

Still, the question remains: As the prosecution put it in one of their first filings last fall, "Why do a group of young Yemeni Americans, born and brought up in Lackawanna, New York, and, in the majority of cases married with children, suddenly leave their otherwise unremarkable lives to spend six to seven weeks in a terrorist training camp, then quietly slip back into roles of middle-class Americans?"

But there seemed enough gray area for Magistrate Judge Kenneth Schroeder to grant Alwan his request for bail last fall, swayed by Alwan's early exit from the camp and anti-al-Qaida statements. But that all changed on Jan. 10, 2003, when another one of the Six -- used-car salesman Faysal Galab -- entered into a plea agreement with the government.

Galab copped to the different crime of "contributing funds and services to specially designated terrorists, in violation of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act" -- having paid cash for a green uniform -- but not the "providing material support" charge leveled against the others. "It's the same as if he brought back cigars from Cuba," insists Joseph LaTona, his attorney. "He wasn't planning, plotting or scheming in any way."

Galab had some interesting news about at least one of his pals. One of the Lackawanna Six had had a private face-to-face with bin Laden: Sahim Alwan.

Alwan's bail offer was immediately revoked.

In fact, Alwan had spoken with bin Laden twice, in two different Kandahar guesthouses: in May 2001, on his way to al-Farooq, and in a private meeting after leaving the camp in June. According to an account from Alwan's attorney, James Harrington, at the latter meeting the two sat on the floor. Bin Laden asked Alwan what Muslims in the U.S. thought of "martyrdom operations." Alwan said it wasn't something Americans much thought about.

A long pause.

"How are your brothers doing at the camp?" bin Laden asked. All right, he replied.

"Why are you leaving?" bin Laden asked. Alwan said he missed his family.

Bin Laden was surprisingly soft-spoken, he thought.

"Bin Laden wanted Alwan to reconsider and continue training at the camp, and Alwan told him he couldn't," said Harrington. He denied that Alwan hid anything from investigators; no one ever asked if he'd met with bin Laden. Harrington even tried to cast the meeting with bin Laden as evidence of Alwan's allegiance to the United States. "Despite the pressure of a face-to-face meeting with one of the most powerful and negatively influential men in the world, Mr. Alwan continued home from Afghanistan and was not swayed," Harrington said to the court.

Galab was just the first of the Six to act on his fear of additional charges the government might file -- especially as an "enemy combatant" held without trial, the right to an attorney, or necessarily even a formal charge. Lawanda Albanah says that her cousin Aisha, who's engaged to Galab, told her that Galab's attorney pressured him to enter into the agreement. LaTona, the attorney, disputes this.

Mosed pleaded guilty on March 24. Goba did the same on March 25.

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