His disciples were located in strategic locations; New York was host to Ahmed and another Arab fanatic trained in Libya. They both used Columbia University as their cover. Washington D.C. was honored with a Syrian terrorist who had organized mass anti- US demonstrations in Damascus as the request of President Assad. Los Angeles and San Francisco were homes to 4 more engineering type desert terrorist school graduates who were allowed to move freely and interact with the shakers and movers in high technolo- gy disciplines. Miami, Atlanta, Chicago, Boston, and Dallas were also used as recruitment centers for developing Ahmed's personal army. If the media had been aware of the group's activities they would have made note that Ahmed's inner circle were very highly skilled not only in the use of C4 and Cemex, the Czechoslovakian plastic explosive that was responsible for countless deaths of innocent bystanders, but that were all very well educated. Each spoke English like a native, fluent in colloquialisms and idioms unique to America. Much of his army had skills which enabled them to acquire posi- tions of importance within engineering departments of companies such as IBM, Apple, Hughes Defense Systems, Chase Manhattan, Prudential Life, Martin Marietta, Westinghouse, Compuserve, MCI and hundreds of similar organizations. Every one of their em- ployers would have attested to their skills, honor and loyalty to their adapted country. Ahmed's group was well versed in decep- tion. After all, they answered to a greater cause. What even a seasoned reporter might not find out though, was that all 12 of Ahmed's elite recruiters had to pass a supreme test often required by international political terrorist organiza- tions. To guarantee their loyalty to the cause, whatever that cause might be, and to weed out potential external infiltrators, each member had to have killed at least one member of their immediate family. It requires extraordinary hardening, to say the least, to kill your mother or father. Or to blow up the school bus that carried your pre-teen sister to school. Or engage your brother in a mock fight and then sever his head from his body. The savagery that permitted one access into this elite circle is beyond the compre- hension of most Western minds. Yet such acts were expected to demonstrate one's loyalty to a supreme purpose or belief. The events surrounding Solman Rushdie and the Satanic Verses were a case in point. Each of those who volunteered to assassinate him at the bequest of the Ayatollah Khomeini had in fact already killed not only innocent women and children in order to reach their assigned terrorist targets, but had brought the head of their family victim to the table of their superiors. A deed for which they were honored and revered.