Ramy Zamzam

Five men who recently went missing from around the nation’s capital were arrested Tuesday during a raid in Pakistan, according to an official with the Pakistani embassy in Washington.

The official said that the men, all U.S. citizens, are being held by Pakistani police while authorities look into possible links to extremist groups.

The FBI recently launched an investigation into the five young men after their families and the Council on American-Islamic Relations notified the FBI of the disappearances, according to CAIR.

During a press conference Wednesday afternoon, CAIR officials said the men had left behind an 11-minute video, which the officials said “disturbed” them and misinterpreted verses of the Koran.

At least one of the missing men can be seen in the video, according to the CAIR officials.

U.S. authorities believe the men, 19 to 25 years old, went to Pakistan to join a terrorist group, one U.S. official said.

Hours after FOX News reported on the FBI investigation Tuesday night, Pakistani sources disclosed that five people had been arrested during an anti-terror raid on a house in the Punjab province of Pakistan.

One of those arrested is of Egyptian descent, another is of Yemeni descent, and the others are of Pakistani descent, the Pakistani official in Washington said.

U.S. authorities say they believe the men arrested in Pakistan are the men who disappeared from the Washington area, but they cannot confirm that until appropriate personnel is on the ground in Pakistan.

The Investigative Project on Terrorism, a Washington-based group that tracks Islamic extremism, says the missing men were last seen on Nov. 29.

(IPT report here: http://www.investigativeproject.org/1557/authorities-search-for-five-missing-dc-area)

After learning of the men’s disappearance, agents from the FBI’s Washington field office interviewed family members, friends and others who may have known where the five students went, and how they got there, according to a source.

Statements from the Justice Department and FBI said the FBI is working with families and local law enforcement on the case.

One of the missing students has been identified by a source and online communications as 22-year-old Ramy Zamzam of Alexandria, Va., a dental student at Howard University in Washington, D.C.

A purported Howard University student and two others created a page on the social-networking web site Facebook, urging the public to help find the missing men.

The page, titled “In Support of Our Missing Brothers: May Allah Bring Them to Safety,” names a Wakar Khan and three others — only referred to as “Ahmad,” “Amaam,” and “Omar” — as the four other missing men.

“This group is not about speculating or judging, it is about coming together to support these brothers and their families,” the page says. “We all live very close so we should use the advantage of such a close community to … do what we can to help. Please forward any information to the proper sources that may help in this investigation. May Allah swt [sic] keep him, his family, as well as the others safe.”

As of Wednesday afternoon, Zamzam’s Facebook page remained active. On it he describes himself as a Muslim who likes “gulab jobin” and “baklava,” and who is “trying to be a [dentist].”

In addition, he has joined several networking groups, including Howard University’s “Cinnamon Toast Crunch Addicts” and a group called “For Every 1,000 that join this group I will donate $1 for Darfur.”

According to Facebook, Zamzam has family members scattered around the world, including in Indonesia, Germany, Egypt, Malaysia, Syria, and the Congo.

Efforts to reach Zamzam and his family were not successful. A call to the Howard University police was not returned.

– Fox News’ Catherine Herridge, Scott Heidler and Grigory Khananayev contributed to this report