WASHINGTON, 11 February 2004 — This is a confusing case, mainly because most people — this correspondent included — never heard of “Paintball Games.”

Query “Google” or “Ask Jeeves” and you’ll see it’s an international game with clubs, magazines, special outfits and all sorts of bells and whistles. The game? One goes to woods and splatters others with paintballs from paintball rifles. The paintballs are different colors, designating different determinations on the “victims.”

My dentist’s assistant plays paintball every weekend with her husband and their children. She says they love gallivanting through the woods shooting at each other.

Hopefully this synopsis on paintball games will help put the following into context.

Here in Virginia, four US citizens are accused of conspiring to aid the Taleban and being members of a “Virginia jihad network caught up in a world of paramilitary training where fighting for Islam was a virtue and America was the enemy,” according to prosecutors in opening arguments Monday.

The men — who all live in Virginia — played paintball together on weekends, but their games attracted the attention of the federal government.

The government says the four defendants — Masoud Ahmad Khan, Seifullah Chapman, Hammad AbdurRaheem and Caliph Basha ibn Abdur-Raheem — played paintball games in 2000 and 2001 for military training purposes aimed at ultimately assisting a Pakistani terrorist group.

The prosecutors say the men’s intentions turned hostile after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

But their defense attorneys say the prosecutors are painting the wrong picture. They say rather than being terrorists, these men were simply playing games — like so many others — and had no intention of harming the US or engaging in a violent jihad. At most, the lawyers say, they were in training to stay in shape and defend themselves from what they see as an anti-Muslim bias in the US.

Last June these men were charged with conspiracy, firearms charges and other crimes. Six others who were indicted have pleaded guilty to various charges, and some have been sentenced to more than 10 years in prison.