WASHINGTON, Eight people, including four US residents, were charged in a 50-count indictment for links with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group, Attorney General Ashcroft announced on Thursday.

They were also charged with conspiracy to kill and maim people abroad; conspiracy to provide material support to the group; extortion; perjury; mail and wire fraud; obstruction of justice; and attempt to procure citizenship or naturalization unlawfully.

All eight could get life in prison if convicted.

“University of South Florida professor Sami Al-Arian is the North American leader of Palestinian Islamic Jihad,” said Ashcroft while announcing the federal indictment.

“The Palestinian Islamic Jihad is a US government-designated foreign terrorist organization committed to “homicide bombings” and violent jihad activities,” Ashcroft said at an afternoon press conference. “Palestinian Islamic Jihad is one of the most violent terrorist organizations in the world,” he added.

“Our message to them and others like them is clear,” Ashcroft said. “We make no distinction to those who carry out terror attacks and those who finance and manage [them].”

US authorities blame the group for carrying out terrorist attacks in Israel and charge it with killing more than 100 Israeli and two American citizens.

The indictment, returned by a federal grand jury in Tampa, Florida, was unsealed on Thursday. It charges that the men are members of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, designated by the United States as a terrorist organization. Among them are a Palestinian professor at the University of South Florida, 45-year-old Al-Arian, who is described as the group’s US leader and secretary of its worldwide council.

The indictment says that the Islamic Jihad rejects a peaceful solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict and instead encourages Palestinians to “embrace “martyrdom for the liberation of Palestine,” which the prosecutors interpreted as calling for suicide missions. The group’s purpose, they said, is to destroy Israel and end all US and Western influence in the region.

The Islamic Jihad, the indictment said, also killed two US citizens — Alisa Flatow, 20, and Shoshama Ben-Yishai, 16 — in terrorist attacks inside Israel. The group used suicide bombings, car bombs, drive-by shootings, and suicide attacks to achieve its goals.

Those arrested in the US are: Al-Arian, Sameeh Hammoudeh, 42, Hatim Naji Fariz, 30, Ghassan Zayed Ballut, 41.

Four other accused, living overseas and not arrested are: Ramadan Abdullah Shallah, 45, Bashir Musa Mohammed Nafi, 50, Mohammed Tasir Hassan Al-Khatib, 46, and Abd AL Aziz Awda, 52.