Former Houstonian faces terror charges

Former Houstonian Daniel Joseph Maldonado has become the first American to be charged with joining terrorists in Somalia. Maldonado, 28, was arrested in Kenya last month and was ordered held without bond yesterday on charges that he trained with al-Qaeda to try to form an Islamic state in Somalia.

According to the criminal complaint against Maldonado, he left Houston in November 2005 for Cairo; by December 2006, he was in Somalia, where he had been issued an AK-47 and attended two military training camps at which members of al-Qaeda were present.His goal, he said, was to take all challengers in the fight to overthrow the Somali government: "I would be fighting the Somali militia, and that turned into fighting the Ethiopians, and if Americans came, I would fight them too," the complaint quotes Maldonado as saying. Officials say Maldonado got extensive explosives training from a man called "The Bomb Maker," who talked about knowing Osama bin Laden; he also reportedly was trained in the use of TNT and nitrates. He allegedly offered to be a suicide bomber if he ended up being wounded and could no longer fight. But it wasn't an injury that ended up sidelining Maldonado: He said he got malaria, which brought an end to his training, and Kenyan soldiers caught him trying to flee Somalia on Jan. 21. (The Chronicle has a timeline that'll take you through the Maldonado case to date.)

"This case represents the first criminal prosecution of an American suspected of joining forces with Islamic extremist fighters in Somalia. The prosecution of Mr. Maldonado demonstrates the scope of our laws and serves as a warning to others who would travel overseas to wage violent jihad," Kenneth L. Wainstein, Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department’s National Security Division, said Tuesday. Maldonado faces a charge of training with a foreign terrorist organization, which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison, and a charge of conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction, which could land him in prison for life if he's convicted. A detention hearing has been set for Tuesday.