Alexandria:
A member of the mosque attended by the five young American Muslims arrested in Pakistan said on Thursday that they had been a constant presence, always in traditional Muslim dress, at the mosque, a modest place of worship just off busy Route 1 in this Washington suburb.
"I see them here all the time," said Prince Ahmed Ofosu, originally of Ghana, as he left the mosque, which is known as the ICNA Center and is affiliated with the Islamic Circle of North America. "They are good guys."
Ofosu said that mosque officials informed the congregation on Dec. 1 that the men were missing. Since then, he said, worshipers have been praying for them. He said congregants had had no idea where they were bound or the purpose of their trip.
Friends and acquaintances of the men struggled Thursday to make sense of the news that Pakistani officials believed that they had been seeking a way to fight U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
Howard University was abuzz with discussion of Ramy Zamzam, a dental student there who was among those arrested.
"He is a soft-spoken person who is kind and very helpful," said June Woolfork, a friend who traveled to Egypt last summer as an exchange student and saw Zamzam there. "I'm extremely worried, because he's such a great person."
Zamzam, 22, made it clear even to casual acquaintances that his religion came first in his life. He made a pilgrimage to Mecca in 2007, friends said, and came back even more intensely observant, never missing any of the five daily prayers and less tolerant of those who did not share his beliefs.
"When we were 'brothers,' it was all love," said a Howard student who had flirted with the idea of converting to Islam. But after he decided not to convert, Zamzam ignored him completely, he said.
Meanwhile, reporters gathered near the ICNA Center on the same dead-end block of Woodlawn Trail where the families of two of the arrested men live.
Public records show that one of the men, Umer Farooq, lives next to the mosque with his parents, Khalid and Sabira, who run a computer business called Geeks Data Recovery. A few doors down on the opposite side of the street is the home of Ahmed Minni, another of those arrested. Pakistani officials had originally identified him as Ahmed Abdullah. His family operates a day care center in their house.
Michael Elliott, who lives near the mosque and runs a landscaping business, said he thought highly of his Muslim neighbors, though the small street is jammed on Fridays with worshipers' cars.
"The Minnis and the Farooqs have always been very nice," Elliott said in an interview. "It's kind of the younger generation that doesn't care about the rights of the neighbors."
Elliott said that when his wife videotaped the street one day last year while it was jammed with parked cars, young men who were helping park them called her a racist.