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Jeffrey Leon Battle was a member of a terrorist group dubbed the Portland Seven, some members of which attempted to travel to Afghanistan shortly after 9/11 in order to aid the Taliban. He refused to cooperate with the government and was sentenced to eighteen years in prison after pleading guilty to seditious conspiracy and levying war against the United States. He had two years added to his sentence for refusing to testify before a grand jury.
Jeffrey Leon Battle had a checkered past. According to an article in the Star-Ledger, "Battle was a ne'er-do-well, a one-time Mary Kay cosmetics representative who was trying to wriggle out of his commitment to the U.S. Army reserves after washing out in boot camp." [1]
Jeffrey Leon Battle moved to Portland in the late 1990s from Houston, Texas, where he served as a bodyguard for New Black Panther leader and community activist Quanell X. [2]
On September 29, 2001, a group of men from what would later be termed the Portland Seven were engaged in shooting practice at a gravel pit in Skamania County, located in southern Washington, including Battle, Ford, al Saoub and Ali Khaled Steitiye, who was not a member of the Portland Seven but convicted in 2002 on firearms, fraud and immigration charges and testified against the others in 2004 as part of a plea agreement in a weapons-possession charge. The group was discovered by Deputy Sheriff Mark Mercer who was acting on a tip from a neighbor who had heard gunfire in the pit. Deputy Mercer let the men go after taking their names and reported the incident to the FBI. Battle was taped in a secretly recorded conversation indicating the members of the Portland Seven who were at the gravel pit had considered killing Deputy Mercer. “We was up there blowin it up … We was lightin’ it up … [W]e looked at it as worship because what our intentions were, to learn to shoot for. And a cop came up and he was like hey … you don’t understand how close he was gonna get popped … yeah, we was gonna pop him.” Battle later indicated they had opted not to kill the officer because he seemed "cool". [3]
According to the indictment, on October 17, 2001, Battle and al Saoub flew out of Portland International Airport en route to Afghanistan. On October 20, 2001, Ford and the two Bilals also took the same route out of the United States. Between October 2001 and January 2002, Lewis wired a series of money orders to Battle in China and Bangladesh. In January 2002 Battle was administratively discharged from the military. Battle returned to the U.S. on or about February 5, 2002. The six male members of the group travelled to China in early 2002, with the intent of entering Afghanistan to aid the Taliban. Lacking visas and other documentation, they were turned back, and all but al Saoub then returned again to the United States.[ citation needed ]
On October 3, 2002, a federal grand jury in United States District Court for the District of Oregon in Portland, Oregon, indicted Battle, Ford, the two Bilals, al Saoub and Lewis. On October 4, 2002 the FBI in Portland, announced the arrest of four of those original six on charges of aiding and, in some cases, trying to join Al-Qaida fighters. Battle, Ford and Lewis were all arrested that morning in Portland. [4]
Battle and October Martinique Lewis, another member of the Portland Seven, were married in 1999, divorcing after five months (although they continued to live together). According to Lewis' mother, Lewis and Battle had worked in a Portland retirement home. [5]
Battle's attorney said that Battle was motivated by a religious desire to help fellow Muslims. However, prosecutors maintain that Battle had earlier considered committing a different terrorist act in the United States. "He had said he wanted to kill hundreds of Jews at a Portland-area synagogue or Jewish school." [6]
Patrice Lumumba Ford, Jeffrey Leon Battle, October Lewis, Muhammad Ibrahim Bilal, his brother Ahmed Ibrahim Bilal, Maher "Mike" Hawash, and Habis Abdulla al Saoub made up the original seven members wanted by the FBI. Al Saoub was killed by Pakistani forces in Afghanistan while part of an al Qaeda cell. Ford is also serving an eighteen-year sentence. Lewis was sentenced to three years in a federal prison camp. Muhammad Bilal got eight years while Ahmed Bilal got ten. Hawash was sentenced to seven years.
John Philip Walker Lindh is an American Taliban member who was captured by United States forces as an enemy combatant during the United States' invasion of Afghanistan in November 2001. He was detained at Qala-i-Jangi fortress, used as a prison. He denied participating in the Battle of Qala-i-Jangi, a violent uprising of the Taliban prisoners, stating that he was wounded in the leg and hid in the cellar of the Pink House, in the southern half of the fort. He was one of 86 of the estimated 400 prisoners to survive the uprising, in which CIA officer Johnny "Mike" Spann was killed. Brought to trial in United States federal court in February 2002, Lindh accepted a plea bargain; he pleaded guilty to two charges and was sentenced to 20 years in prison. He was released on supervision on May 23, 2019, for a three-year period of supervised release.
The Buffalo Six is a group of six Yemeni-American friends who pled guilty to charges of providing material support to al-Qaeda in December 2003, based on their having attended an al-Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan together in the Spring of 2001. The suspects were facing likely convictions with steeper sentences under the "material support law" which requires no proof that a defendant engaged in terrorism, aided or abetted terrorism, or conspired to commit terrorism.
Brandon Mayfield is a Muslim-American convert in Washington County, Oregon, who was wrongfully detained in connection with the 2004 Madrid train bombings on the basis of a faulty fingerprint match. On May 6, 2004, the FBI arrested Mayfield as a material witness in connection with the Madrid attacks, and held him for two weeks, before releasing him with a public apology following Spanish authorities identifying another suspect. A United States DOJ internal review later acknowledged serious errors in the FBI investigation. Ensuing lawsuits resulted in a $2 million settlement. An initial ruling declared some provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act unconstitutional, but the United States government appealed, and the ruling was overturned at the Ninth Circuit level on technical standing grounds.
Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani is a Tanzanian conspirator of the al-Qaeda terrorist organization convicted for his role in the bombing of embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. He was indicted in the United States as a participant in the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings. He was on the FBI Most Wanted Terrorists list from its inception in October 2001. In 2004, he was captured and detained by Pakistani forces in a joint operation with the United States, and was held until June 9, 2009, at Guantanamo Bay detention camp; one of 14 Guantanamo detainees who had previously been held at secret locations abroad. According to The Washington Post, Ghailani told military officers he is contrite and claimed to be an exploited victim of al-Qaeda operatives.
Earnest James Ujaama is an American community activist and former terrorist suspect.
Maher Mofeid "Mike" Hawash is an American engineer who was convicted and sentenced to a seven-year prison sentence in 2003 for conspiring to aid the Taliban in fighting against U.S. forces and their allies in Afghanistan. Six weeks after 9/11, Hawash secretly traveled to China with a group of Portland-area Muslims, dubbed the Portland Seven, with the intent of entering Afghanistan to aid the Taliban. Hawash and his fellow conspirators were unable to reach Afghanistan due to visa problems, according to federal authorities,
The Portland Seven was a group of American Muslims from the Portland, Oregon area arrested in October 2002 as part of an FBI operation attempting to close down a terrorist cell. The seven were attempting to join al Qaeda forces in their fight against the United States military and coalition forces in Afghanistan, or aiding in that attempt.
Tre Arrow is a green anarchist who gained prominence in the U.S. state of Oregon in the late 1990s and early 2000s for his environmental activism, bid for Congress as a Pacific Green Party candidate, and then for his arrest and later conviction for committing acts of arson on cement and logging trucks. He unsuccessfully sought political asylum in Canada, and was extradited to Portland, Oregon, on February 29, 2008, to face 14 counts of arson and conspiracy. These actions were claimed as acts of protest by the Earth Liberation Front (ELF). On June 3, 2008, Arrow pleaded guilty to 2 counts of arson and was sentenced with 78 months in prison. He was released to a halfway house in 2009.
Ali Abdul Saoud Mohamed is a double agent who worked for both the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and Egyptian Islamic Jihad simultaneously, reporting on the workings of each for the benefit of the other.
Operation Backfire is a multi-agency criminal investigation, led by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), into destructive acts in the name of animal rights and environmental causes in the United States described as eco-terrorism by the FBI. The operation resulted in convictions and imprisonment of a number of people, many of whom were members of the Animal Liberation Front and Earth Liberation Front.
The Green Scare is legal action by the US government against the radical environmental movement, that occurred mostly in the 2000's. It alludes to the Red Scares, periods of fear over communist infiltration of US society.
A Syrian-Kurd, Abd al-Rahim Abdul Rassak al-Janko is a former student in the United Arab Emirates who traveled to Afghanistan in 2000, where he was captured by the Taliban who announced that he had confessed to plotting to murder Osama bin Laden, as well as spying against the Taliban on behalf of Israel and the United States. He was also denounced for "his sexual indiscretions with other young men" and accused of homosexuality. Following the Invasion of Afghanistan, al-Janko begged a British journalist to alert the Americans that he had been held prisoner by the Taliban for two years; however, he was taken from the Taliban prison by American forces, and sent to the Guantanamo Bay detention camps where he spent seven years in detention.
Habis Abdulla al Saoub, a.k.a. Abu Tarek, was a Jordanian national and member of the Portland Seven, and later a member of an al Qaeda cell. In February 2003, he was added to the FBI Seeking Information - War on Terrorism list, wanted in connection with a federal grand jury indictment returned on October 3, 2002, in United States District Court for the District of Oregon at Portland, Oregon, in which he was charged with conspiracy to levy war against the United States, conspiracy to provide material support and resources to al-Qaeda, conspiracy to contribute services to al-Qaeda and the Taliban, and possessing firearms in furtherance of crimes of violence. The FBI offered a five million dollar reward for his capture.
Muhammad Ibrahim Bilal was a member of a terrorist group dubbed the Portland Seven, some members of which attempted to travel to Afghanistan shortly after 9/11 in order to aid the Taliban. In October 2002, Bilal was indicted and shortly thereafter arrested in Detroit. In 2003, he was sentenced to eight years on gun charges and for conspiracy to aid the Taliban in fighting the United States and coalition forces.
Ahmed Ibrahim Bilal was a member of a terrorist group dubbed the Portland Seven, some members of which attempted to travel to Afghanistan shortly after the September 2001 attack on the World Trade Center (9/11) to aid the Taliban. He was indicted and arrested in Malaysia in October 2002. In 2003, he was sentenced to ten years imprisonment on gun charges and for conspiracy to aid the Taliban in fighting the multinational force in Iraq. He was released on June 27, 2011.
October Martinique Lewis was a member of a terrorist group dubbed the Portland Seven, some members of which attempted to travel to Afghanistan shortly after 9/11 in order to aid the Taliban. Lewis was sentenced to three years in federal prison after cooperating with the government and pleading guilty to six counts of money laundering. Lewis admitted to transferring money abroad to Jeffrey Leon Battle, her ex-husband, in order to assist him in his efforts to aid the Taliban.
Patrice Lumumba Ford has been accused of membership in a terrorist group dubbed the Portland Seven, members of which attempted to travel to Afghanistan shortly after 9/11 in order to aid the Taliban. He refused to cooperate with the government and was sentenced to eighteen years in prison after pleading guilty to seditious conspiracy and levying war against American and allied forces.
Robert Edward Jones is an American politician and judge in Oregon. He serves as a senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Oregon in Portland. A Portland native, he previously served as the 84th justice of the Oregon Supreme Court and as a member of the Oregon House of Representatives.
In the United States, a common definition of terrorism is the systematic or threatened use of violence in order to create a general climate of fear to intimidate a population or government and thereby effect political, religious, or ideological change. This article serves as a list and a compilation of acts of terrorism, attempts to commit acts of terrorism, and other such items which pertain to terrorist activities which are engaged in by non-state actors or spies who are acting in the interests of state actors or persons who are acting without the approval of foreign governments within the domestic borders of the United States.
The 2010 Portland car bomb plot involved an incident in which Mohamed Osman Mohamud, a Somali-American student, was arrested in an FBI sting operation on November 26, 2010, after attempting to set off what he thought was a car bomb at a Christmas tree lighting in Portland, Oregon. He was charged with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction. An attorney for Mohamud argued that his client was entrapped. On January 31, 2013, a jury found Mohamud guilty of the single charge against him. He was scheduled to be sentenced on December 18, 2013, however the sentencing was cancelled in anticipation of the filing of new motions by the defense. In September 2014, Mohamud was sentenced to 30 years in federal prison with credit for time served, as well as lifetime supervision upon release in 2040.
People listed in italics have died. | |||||
| September 11 attacks |
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| Buffalo Six | |||||
| al-Qaeda/al-Jihad | |||||
| Boston cab drivers |
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| Portland Seven | |||||
| Arrested in 2005 and convicted |
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| Liberty City Seven |
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| 2007 Fort Dix plot |
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| D.C. Five |
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| Held at Guantanamo Bay | |||||
| Others |
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| Related articles | |||||
1 Currently imprisoned. 2 Released after serving sentence. | |||||
