The judge also slated two hearings for Monday, June 6. One will determine if Sabir will remain in custody pending trial. The second will determine if Sabir is the same person named in a New York criminal complaint and if so, should he be transferred there for trial.

An arraignment was scheduled tentatively for June 15, but it was not clear if it will be in South Florida or New York.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Jennifer Brown said the government wants Sabir held in custody until trial, saying he was both a flight risk and a threat to the community.

A supporter, Daniel McBride, a spokesman for the Islamic Center of Boca Raton, called Sabir a "broke doctor" and "a good Muslim" said the Muslim community will assist him in retaining an attorney.

McBride called the charges against Sabir, "Absurb, absolutely unfounded."

In New York City another hearing was going on, this one for the other defendant in the case, Tarik Shah, 42, of New York. The Associated Press reported that Shah waved and smiled at supporters and appeared relaxed at his preliminary hearing in U.S. District Court in Manhattan before Magistrate Theodore Katz on Tuesday.

Prosecutors said Sabir, an Ivy League-educated doctor, agreed to treat jihadists, or holy warriors, in Saudi Arabia. Shah, a jazz musician and a self-described martial arts expert, allegedly agreed to train them in hand-to-hand combat.

Shah's mother, Marlene Jenkins of Albany, told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel the charge against her son is ridiculous and insisted he's not a terrorist. Sabir's former wife, Ingrid Doyle of New York, told the newspaper he was a good father and husband, and a hardworking man.

It wasn't made any clearer by the U.S. attorney's office releasing the complaint whether Shah and Sabir were terrorists in the making or just talk.

"I don't know if they're terrorists," New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg told Newsday. "They clearly have said that they wanted to destroy our way of life and hurt the people of America. And if that's your definition of terrorism, I guess that certainly qualifies. How serious it was, whether it's just two misguided people ... whether they really had ties to al-Qaida, that we will have to see as the investigation goes forward."

FBI agents and police officers arrested Shah in his Bronx apartment and Sabir in Boca Raton, Fla., this weekend, capping a probe that began in October 2003 when an ex-convict and paid informant told an FBI agent that Shah told him he had trained "brothers" in hand-to-hand combat for "jihad."

Earlier story follows:

Dr. Rafiq Sabir today makes his first appearance in U.S. District Court since his weekend arrest on terrorism charges, but federal agents have spent years building a case against the Palm Beach County emergency-room physician.

They've tracked the 50-year- old's travels to Saudi Arabia and documented phone conversations about joining the al-Qaida terrorist organization with an alleged accomplice, Tarik Shah, 42.

And for the past three months, FBI agents have been staking out the unlikeliest of places: The gated Villa San Remo community west of Boca Raton.

The FBI's presence was conspicuous in Sabir's upper-middle class neighborhood, dotted with lush lawns and well-kept homes. An agent parked his car parked for days in front of Anthony Ruggeri's home.

"I challenged the guy," Ruggeri said, recalling he asked him: "`What are you doing here?'"

The agent flashed his FBI badge and told Ruggeri he was watching a house down the street. Still incredulous, Ruggeri called the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office, where deputies confirmed the FBI's beat.

Sabir and Shah, a New York martial-arts expert and jazz musician, were arrested over the weekend on charges that they conspired to provide material support to al-Qaida, the terrorist organization led by Osama bin Laden. Sabir, who is being held in the Palm Beach County jail, is scheduled to appear today in Fort Pierce; Shah's arraignment will be in New York. If convicted, they could face 15 years in prison.

Sabir, nicknamed "the Doctor," planned to treat "wounded jihadists," while Shah wanted to train al-Qaida recruits in hand-to-hand combat, the FBI alleges.

The FBI began watching Sabir in November 2002, according to the 18-page complaint filed in New York charging Sabir and Shah. Sabir was pulled over near a mosque in Beacon, N.Y., for "suspicious activity," the complaint said.

Two years later, FBI agents linked Sabir to their investigation of Shah, who was arrested in the Bronx on Saturday. The two were a "package" in providing assistance to al-Qaida, Shah said.

They frequently corresponded, exchanging 22 phone calls one week in March, the FBI report said. The pair talked to an undercover agent about an unsuccessful 1998 trip to al-Qaida training camps in "the mountains" of Afghanistan. Sabir and Shah pledged loyalty, or bayat, to al-Qaida and talked of recruiting "brothers" to the cause, according to the report.

"I don't know if they're terrorists," New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said. "They clearly have said that they wanted to destroy our way of life and hurt the people of America. And if that's your definition of terrorism, I guess that certainly qualifies.

"How serious it was, whether it's just two misguided people ... or whether they really had ties to al-Qaida, that we will have to see as the investigation goes forward."

After working at two Long Island hospitals, Sabir got his Florida drivers license in 2002 and a state medical license in 2003. But between October 2004 and May, Sabir was in Saudi Arabia at least part of the time, the FBI said.

When he returned to Florida early this month, Sabir told an undercover FBI agent that he worked at a Saudi military base in Riyadh. In Palm Beach County, he had worked at Glades General Hospital.

Sabir had reservations to fly to Saudi Arabia on Thursday, the report said.

Little light was shed Monday on how Sabir came to be implicated in a terrorist plot.

Odena Wright said she was married to his Sabir's father, Norman Wright, from 1970 until he died in 1990. Sabir and his father had had a rocky relationship, she said.

Still, she choked back tears when told of Sabir's arrest.

"I don't believe this," said Wright, 59. "I didn't know him as the type of person to do something like this at all."

But Sabir and Shah -- both U.S. citizens -- exploited disbelief that a doctor and a musician could be involved in terrorist activities, the FBI report says.

Shah said "his greatest cover" has been his career as a professional jazz musician, and added that he took his bass with him when he traveled to avoid suspicion, the FBI said. And Sabir said his doctor's credentials allowed him to roam Saudi Arabia freely, according to the report.

Walid Phares, an expert on Islamic affairs, called recruits who have an everyday American veneer "the second wave of al-Qaida."

The new face of terrorism is not Mohamed Atta, he said, referring to a suspected ringleader in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, who lived in Delray Beach. Twelve of the 19 men linked to the airline hijackings lived in South Florida.

In an age of heightened security, Phares said, "Are they going to pick somebody who would act strangely and make statements every day? No. They're going to choose the people who are integrated, who are the cleanest."