A former teacher at an Islamic school in Maryland was sentenced yesterday to 15 years in prison for conspiring to and providing material support to Lashkar-e-Toiba.

Ali Asad Chandia was also sentenced to three years of supervised release at the completion of his incarceration, said U.S. Attorney Chuck Rosenberg of the Eastern District of Virginia.

The State Department branded Lashkar-e-Toiba a foreign terrorist organisation in 2001, and Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf banned the group in 2002.

According to the department, the group is led by Hafiz Muhammad Saeed and is one of the three largest and best-trained groups fighting in Kashmir against India.

“The Pakistan government banned the group and froze its assets in January 2002. Elements of

Laskhar-e-Toiba and Jaish-e-Muhammed combined with other groups to mount attacks as 'The Save Kashmir Movement.'"

Chandia on Friday maintained his innocence. “God knows well that I did not support any terrorists,” he said.

“Those who participated in making my children orphans... should just remember that the day of judgment is on the way.”

On June 6, a jury found Chandia, 29, guilty of conspiracy to provide material support and resources to a designated foreign terrorist organisation.

Prosecutors established that during a three-month trip to Pakistan in 2001-2002, Chandia befriended Mohammed Ajmal Khan, a British citizen of Pakistani descent.

Khan, who is currently serving a nine-year sentence in Britain for directing a terrorist organisation, served as a military procurement official for Lashkar-e-Toiba.

Chandia assisted Khan in procuring military-purpose equipment for Lashkar-e-Toiba for use in its jihad against India. He gave safe harbour to Khan during Khan's visits to the United States in 2002 and 2003, and allowed Khan to use his home computer to pursue the acquisition of equipment such as unmanned aerial vehicles, night-vision equipment and wireless video cameras. Khan also used the Chandia's computer to confirm the purchase of $17,000 worth of Kevlar anti-ballistic material that Khan had purchased for Lashkar-e-Toiba.

"Terrorist organisations like Lashkar-e-Toiba rely on a network of individuals to carry out their deadly operations," U.S. Attorney Rosenberg said. "Ali Asad Chandia was a member of that network for Lashkar-e-Toiba.

Arak (Iran), August 26
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad today inaugurated a new phase in the Arak heavy-water reactor project, part of Iran’s atomic programme which the West fears is aimed at producing bombs.

A Reuters witness said the president inaugurated the project and toured the site at Khondab, which is near Arak, 190 km southwest of the capital Tehran. The plant’s plutonium by-product could be used to make atomic warheads.

The move came days before a UN deadline for Iran to halt uranium enrichment, the part of the programme which is the biggest worry to the West. But the latest development is likely to raise further fears in Western capitals.

“Inaugurating the heavy water production plant in Arak is a big step towards using Iran’s right, which means reaching peaceful nuclear technology,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi was quoted by state television as saying.

An Iranian nuclear official said this week that heavy water production itself was not a proliferation risk but a Western diplomat said such a move would not be a constructive step.

Western nations accuse Iran of seeking to master technology to produce nuclear weapons. Iran, the world’s fourth largest oil exporter, insists its aim is only for electricity.

A small group of correspondents from foreign news organisations were taken with Iranian journalists to Khondab, the site near Arak where the heavy-water project is being built, to attend the presidential speech.

The complex was protected by dozens of anti-aircraft guns and surrounded by a four-metre high barbed wire fence. Photographers and TV journalists were asked not to take any images except in areas where they were specifically permitted.

The Iranian nuclear official had said Iran would start up heavy-water production but not the reactor. He said this unit had no military use so supervision by the UN watchdog, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), was not obligatory.

“The product of this project provides for cooling and depleting systems of the reactor, that can be used in various industries,” the official had told Reuters. — Reuters