2 Middle Eastern refugees arrested in California and Texas on terrorism charges

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Two men who came to the United States as refugees from the Middle East have been arrested on federal terrorism charges in Texas and California, U.S. officials announced Thursday.

Both are Palestinians born in Iraq, and a source told Reuters that while they were not involved in a single plot, they may have been in contact with each other. Authorities arrested Omar Faraj Saeed al-Hardan in Houston, and Aws Mohammed Younis al-Jayab in Sacramento. Al-Hardeen came to the U.S. as an Iraqi refugee in November 2009, court documents say, and al-Jayab arrived in the U.S. in 2012 as a refugee from Syria.

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia is night editor for TheWeek.com. Her writing and reporting has appeared in Entertainment Weekly and EW.com, The New York Times, The Book of Jezebel, and other publications. A Southern California native, Catherine is a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.