Pakistan questions teenager US linked to Taliban

[Lahore_Real_Estate]

MINGORA: Pakistani authorities interrogated a teenager on Monday wanted in the United States on charges of financing and supporting the al Qaeda-linked Pakistani Taliban, local intelligence officials said.

Alam Zeb, 19, was charged in Florida along with his mother and a family friend. He is the grandson of the imam of a Florida mosque who was arrested in the US along with his two sons on Saturday on the same charges of creating a network that moved funds from the US to Taliban supporters in Pakistan.

“Zeb is being interrogated by the security officials at one of their facilities,” an intelligence official told Reuters. The college student denied any links with terrorists.

Zeb said his grandfather, Pakistani-born American Hafiz Muhammad Sher Ali Khan, 76, had sent money back to Pakistan only to help poor relatives rebuild their houses damaged in fighting in Swat between the army and Taliban.

Some money was used to renovate a religious school, Zeb said.

Pakistani officials said they had not received any US request to help track down the three suspects in Pakistan.