July 28, 2009 | 2:29 pm

North Carolina crew charged with plotting ‘violent jihad’

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

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Last week, Long Island boy Bryant Vinas pleaded guilty to terrorism charges. This week it was a North Carolina father and son, and a few others, who were charged with planning “violent jihad” against the United States. From the Daily Mail:

The group was led by Daniel Patrick Boyd, a married 39-year-old who lived in an unassuming lakeside home in a rural area south of Raleigh, where he and his family walked their dog and operated a drywall business, federal authorities added.

But two decades ago, Boyd, who is a US citizen, trained in terrorist camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan and fought against the Soviets for three years before returning to the United States.

No specific terrorist plans or targets overseas are listed in the charge sheet released yesterday, although it claims some of the defendants traveled to Israel in 2007 with the intent of waging ‘violent jihad’ and returned home without success.

‘These charges hammer home the point that terrorists and their supporters are not confined to the remote regions of some far away land but can grow and fester right here at home,’ US Attorney George E.B. Holding said.

He would not give details of the alleged plots beyond what was in a news release and indictment.

The seven men made their first court appearances in Raleigh on Monday, charged with providing material support to terrorism.

The New York Times has the full text of the indictment against Boyd et al. Read it here. I’m going to be blogging more about this story for GetReligion later today, so stay tuned.