Five missing Americans probed for terror links

? Five young American Muslims captured in Pakistan are under investigation for possible links to terrorism after their families found a disturbing farewell video the missing men left behind showing scenes of war and casualties and saying Muslims must be defended.

Frantic relatives and worried FBI agents have been searching for the five men for more than a week, since their disappearance in late November. The missing men, ranging in age from 19 to 25, have family roots in the northern Virginia and Washington, D.C., area. One, Ramy Zamzam, is a dental student at Howard University.

Two U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case, said the five are believed to be under arrest in Pakistan.

In the eastern Pakistan city of Sargodha today, police officials said Pakistani intelligence agents were interrogating the five Americans. They said the men were cooperating after first giving conflicting statements.

The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject, said the five men had been staying at a house in Sargodha believed to be used by the Jaish-e-Mohammed militant group. Jaish has alleged links to al-Qaida and has traditionally focused on targets in India. Investigators seized a laptop computer and extremist literature from the house, the officials said.

On the heels of charges against a Chicago man accused of plotting international terrorism, the case is another worrisome sign that Americans can be recruited within the United States to enlist in terrorist networks.

Leaders of an Islamic American group said the families of the five men asked the FBI for help and were particularly disturbed to see the video message.

“One person appeared in that video and they made references to the ongoing conflict in the world, and that young Muslims have to do something,” said Nihad Awad, of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR.

“The video’s about 11 minutes and it’s like a farewell. And they did not specify what they would be doing. But just hearing and seeing videos similar on the Internet, it just made me uncomfortable,” Awad said. The video has not been made public.

Before the men left, they did not seem to have become militant, a local imam said.

“From all of our interviews, there was no sign they were outwardly radicalized,” said Imam Johari Abdul-Malik.