I-80 ARRESTS INVESTIGATED FOR POSSIBLE TERRORIST TIES

Men Stopped Near Lincoln Being Checked For Links To Drug Ring, Terror
Group

LINCOLN -- Authorities are investigating whether two Detroit men arrested
over the weekend along Interstate 80 have ties to a drug ring that is
believed to be linked to overseas terrorist organizations.

The Nebraska State Patrol would not say whether it has determined if the
two men of Middle Eastern descent have any ties to a methamphetamine ring
that the Drug Enforcement Administration claims has sent money from
Michigan to terror groups such as the Lebanon-based Hezbollah.

"Both the DEA and the FBI are part of further investigation," said U.S.
Attorney Mike Heavican in Omaha. "But it would be wrong to say at this
point that there is some kind of an established connection to what the DEA
was doing in Detroit."

An Omaha-based FBI spokesman said he had not heard of the specific arrests,
but said he could not confirm such information, even if he had it.

Federal authorities have recently amassed what they say is hard evidence of
connections between drugs and terrorism. Officials said a series of DEA
raids in January indicated a meth ring in the Midwest involving men of
Middle Eastern descent has been shipping money back to terror groups. DEA
officials said the ring involved the smuggling of large quantities of the
chemical pseudoephedrine from Canada into the Midwest. Pseudoephedrine is a
key ingredient used to make methamphetamine.

The men arrested in Nebraska were stopped by a state trooper for speeding
outside Lincoln on Sunday morning. After smelling marijuana and receiving
consent to search the car, the trooper found about 300,000 tablets of
suspected pseudoephedrine.

The men told the trooper they were headed to Southern California from
Detroit -- a route the DEA says had been used by a group of men from
Jordan, Yemen, Lebanon and other countries.