Palmetto Pundit: Don’t Let Your Guard Down

(Via Fox News)

NEW YORK — Authorities said Sunday that Rafiq Abdus Sabir (search), 50, a Boca Raton physician, and Tarik Shah (search), 42, a self-described martial arts expert in New York, conspired to treat and train terrorists. Both are American citizens.

This clearly illustrates how global the War on Terror is and how it must also be waged within our own borders.

The one-count complaint claims the men allegedly took an oath pledging their allegiance to Al Qaeda. The government said the men engaged in multiple recorded conversations with a confidential source and an FBI agent posing as an Al Qaeda operative.

During the conversations, Shah also described how he and Sabir in 1998 tried to get to training camps in Afghanistan and said they were a "package" deal, Kelley said in the release.

There will no doubt be some who will come to their defense (the ACLU comes to mind) and claim some type of Freedom of Speech or Freedom of Expression violation, but it clearly doesn’t apply here. The evidence appears to be rock solid:

As recently as May 20, during a meeting at a New York City apartment, Sabir indicated he would travel shortly to Saudi Arabia to treat the wounds of jihadists at a Saudi military base, prosecutors said. Travel records showed he was scheduled to leave Thursday.

During recorded conversations, Shah also repeatedly indicated his desire to train Muslim "brothers" in the martial arts and hand-to-hand combat, the release said.

Shah took steps to find secret locations for jihad weapons training, at one point inspecting a Long Island warehouse, and described previous efforts to recruit others, prosecutors said.

We are a nation at war and these two definitely qualify as enemy combatants. It matters not whether they conduct or participate in training, or fire the weapons- they are providing aid and comfort to our enemies.

I fear there are more out there like them, perhaps even in our own neighborhoods. I shudder to think what they can do if this nation lets it’s guard down-even for a second.

This is not the time for complacency. Vigilance must rule the day. We must treat this as further evidence that the enemy is still out there and they mean us harm.