Gaber Jaber Albanna Elbaneh
Five years ago, people in Lackawanna knew Jaber A. Elbaneh as a humble man who quietly toiled at a cheese factory and was deeply devoted to his family and his Muslim religion. Today, his name is circulated all over the globe by FBI agents who call him a prison escapee and a dangerous associate of al-Qaida, the world’s most feared terrorist group.
The State Department displays his picture with that of Osama bin Laden on a wanted poster for its 26 “Most Wanted Terrorists.” The department is offering a reward up to $5 million for information leading to his capture. The reward is among the largest ever offered for the arrest of an American citizen in a terrorism investigation.
“These people committed terrorist acts resulting in the deaths of thousands of innocent people,” the State Department poster reads. “These acts include attacks on embassies, hijacking of airlines and their destruction, the attacks of September 11, 2001, and other incidents.” Those words are upsetting to Elbaneh’s family because he has never been criminally charged with anything beyond attending a terrorist training camp. But Buffalo FBI agents say Elbaneh, 39, was the right-hand man to the late al-Qaida operative Kamal Derwish. They believe Derwish, another former Lackawanna resident, was on a mission to recruit U.S. citizens to become suicide terrorists.
The FBI believes Elbaneh helped Derwish to recruit the Lackawanna Six, the group of young men who traveled to Afghanistan to train with al-Qaida in early 2001.
“When we look at all the facts surrounding his case, we consider Jaber Elbaneh to be a very dangerous individual,” said FBI Special Agent Edward J. Needham, a member of the Buffalo Joint Terrorism Task Force.
“He’s trained and associated with al-Qaida and had face-to-face meetings with Osama bin Laden, the most dangerous man in the world,” Needham said. “[Elbaneh] is an American citizen. He knows our culture and how to circulate in this country. He’s taken part in the recruiting of Americans to be terrorists.”
Elbaneh is believed to be one of 23 men who escaped from a prison in Sana, Yemen, on Feb. 3. Many of the escapees were men suspected of having ties to terrorist acts, including the bombing of the USS Cole battleship.
Law enforcement officials also allege that Elbaneh told at least one member of the Lackawanna group that he was willing to become a “martyr” for the Muslim cause.
But if people in Lackawanna’s Yemen-American community know anything about Elbaneh’s alleged links to terrorism, they aren’t saying. Those who are willing to speak about Elbaneh said they cannot imagine him working with al-Qaida or any other violent organization.
Elbaneh has many relatives in Lackawanna, including four brothers. The family spokesman is Elbaneh’s uncle, Mohammed Albanna, a candy and tobacco supplier who is facing criminal charges of illegally sending $3.5 million from Western New York to Yemen.
Family members have no idea why the U.S. government considers Elbaneh such a dangerous terrorist, and they’re tired of being asked about him, his uncle said. He added that, to his knowledge, nobody in Lackawanna knows where Elbaneh is now.
“You should be banging on the FBI’s door. Ask them why they put him on this list,” Albanna said. “It’s very frustrating for the community. You hear that he was one of the most dangerous individuals, but you don’t hear why. The government should come out with the full story, once and for all.”
Asked about Elbaneh’s alleged ties to bin Laden and other dangerous terrorists, Albanna said: “The person we know and the person they portray just don’t add up.”
But Robert Heibel, a former FBI counterintelligence agent, offers an explanation.
“A man like that, who is a U.S. citizen and knows our culture, could be a valuable asset to al-Qaida or any other terrorist organization [that] wants to do recruiting in this country,” said Heibel, who now teaches intelligence-gathering at Mercyhurst College in Erie, Pa. “Someone in our government sees him as a major player. Maybe they feel he has already done something more serious than recruiting the Lackawanna Six.”
No local trouble
According to Lackawanna Police Chief Dennis J. O’Hara, Elbaneh never had any trouble with the law before the Lackawanna Six case surfaced in September 2002.
“We never heard his name before this. He had no local arrest record,” O’Hara said. “His life is full of question marks.”
This much is known about Elbaneh: He was born in Yemen and moved to Lackawanna with his family as a boy of about 12. He became an American citizen and graduated from Lackawanna High School in 1987. He lived on Holland Avenue, enjoyed soccer and was a devout participant in prayers at the Guidance Mosque in Lackawanna.
Elbaneh and his wife, who is now in Yemen, have seven children. Elbaneh worked for a time selling candy and tobacco products for his uncle and then landed a job at a South Buffalo plant where cheese is made.
“He worked there two or three years. That was his last [local] job before leaving the country for good,” Albanna said.
In April 2001, at age 34, Elbaneh was one of the Yemeni-American men who left Lackawanna to train at an al-Qaida camp in Afghanistan, learning about explosives, guns and terrorism tactics.
Six of the men who went to the camp later moved back to Lackawanna. All were prosecuted and imprisoned in the Lackawanna Six case. The six men denied that they ever would have committed terrorism against Americans, but federal agents are convinced that al-Qaida hoped to groom the men to take part in suicide bombings or other acts in the United States.
“When the training was over, Elbaneh and Derwish stayed over there. That tells you a lot,” O’Hara said. “We have heard that Elbaneh told someone in the group that he would be willing to become a martyr for the cause.”
Those who know him in Lackawanna’s close-knit Muslim community say they can’t imagine Elbaneh as a terrorist.
“I believe that he stayed in Yemen because he wanted to raise his children away from some of the bad influences of America,” Albanna said. “He wanted them to be away from drugs, the street life, things like that.”
“He never seemed like a man who would be up to anything dangerous,” said Mary Waite, who said Elbaneh often shopped at the small deli she runs near the Guidance Mosque. “He would complain to me about his work, complain about his back problems. But he was always nice.”
Ties to Derwish
What really concerns federal agents is Elbaneh’s close relationship with Derwish.
Government sources have said Derwish was killed by a CIA-fired Hellfire missile in Yemen in November 2002. Authorities believe five other al-Qaida associates were in a car with Derwish and died with him.
Amnesty International criticized the missile attack, calling it an “extrajudicial execution.”
Derwish was viewed by the American government as an individual with unique terrorism ties. A handful of American citizens are known to have trained with al-Qaida, but Derwish is the only American known to have reached a position of authority in the terror group.
Some investigators believe the Lackawanna recruitment effort was a sort of pilot program, aimed at finding Americans who would take part in terrorist actions in the United States.
“Derwish was one of bin Laden’s top lieutenants in America,” O’Hara said. “Elbaneh was his very close friend and his assistant in recruiting terrorists. I believe they were brainwashing young men in Lackawanna, duping them. Down the road, I believe these people would have done anything al-Qaida asked them to do.”
The State Department first posted its reward for Elbaneh in September 2003. Federal prosecutors in Buffalo charged him with supporting al-Qaida by training at the camp.
Authorities believe police in Yemen took Elbaneh into custody in late 2003. In February, he and other al-Qaida suspects escaped from the prison in Sana, fleeing through an underground tunnel.
“He was in prison with some very dangerous people for a long time,” Needham said. “That’s one of the reasons we’re concerned about him.”
e-mail: dherbeck@buffnews.com
