NEW YORK, May 30: Two Muslim men, both US citizens, have been arrested on charges that they conspired to train and provide medical assistance to Al Qaeda fighters, according to newspaper reports here Monday. A report in The New York Times said on Monday that the men, identified as Tarik ibn Osman Shah of the Bronx and Rafiq Sabir of Boca Raton, were captured in early morning raids in the Bronx and in Boca Raton on Friday, according to Paul J. Browne, a New York City police spokesman.

The arrests came as part of a two-year sting operation that ended with each man facing a single conspiracy charge. While the authorities said they had no evidence that either man had actually provided support to terrorists, they said they had taped each man swearing his allegiance to Osama bin Laden, Mr Browne told the paper.

According to a statement released by David N. Kelley, the US attorney for the Southern District of New York, and John Klochan, the acting assistant director in-charge of the New York office of the FBI, a complaint contends that between 2003 and sometime this month, the men met a law-enforcement informant and an FBI agent who was posing as an Al Qaeda operative and recruiter, the newspaper said.

The complaint said that in those meetings, which were recorded, Mr Shah agreed to provide training in martial arts and hand-to-hand combat to Al Qaeda members and associates, while Dr Sabir agreed to provide medical assistance to wounded jihadis in Saudi Arabia, the statement said.

“During these conversations, Mr Shah repeatedly indicated his desire to train Muslim ‘brothers’ in martial arts in order to wage a jihad and also regularly discussed his desire to find people who were willing to press the fight,” it said.

The authorities said Mr Shah inspected a warehouse on Long Island to use as a training facility. He spoke of his efforts to recruit prospective terrorists while on a trip to Phoenix, and told the informant and the agent that in about 1998 he and Dr Sabir had tried to reach training camps in Afghanistan.

The authorities also told the Times that they obtained from Mr Shah Phone numbers of people who had attended the training camps, including Seifullah Champan, who was convicted last year of providing material support to a Pakistan-based terrorist group.

A report on Sunday in The Sun-Sentinel of Fort Lauderdale quoted a friend of Dr Sabir as saying that charges were absurd. “He is a quality guy and a quality physician,” the friend, Dr Daniel McBride, a spokesman for the Islamic Centre of Boca Raton, told the newspaper. “He’s about helping others.”

Mr Browne told the paper that Dr Sabir attended City College of New York and received his medical degree from Columbia medical school. Last night, Lisa Kozan, a neighbour, said she believed that Dr Sabir had rented there for about four years.