Hadn't seen this posted here yet.

Official: Radicals wanted to create carnage at Fort Dix
POSTED: 5:53 p.m. EDT, May 8, 2007
Story Highlights• Six men arrested as two attempted to buy guns Monday
• Men laughed as they watched videos of attacks on Americans
• Those arrested are "Islamic radicals," U.S. attorney's office says
• Sources say men were planning to shoot soldiers at Army base

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WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The federal government charged five alleged Islamic radicals with plotting to kill U.S. soldiers at Fort Dix in New Jersey.

A sixth was charged with aiding and abetting the illegal possession of firearms by three of the others.

"The philosophy that supports and encourages jihad around the world against Americans came to live here in New Jersey and threaten the lives of our citizens through these defendants," New Jersey U.S. Attorney Christopher J. Christie said at a news conference Tuesday. (Watch Christie describe the alleged would-be terrorists )

The men were arrested Monday night and heard the charges against them Tuesday in federal court. They will be held without bond pending a hearing Friday, according to Michael Drewniak, spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of New Jersey.

Christie described Tuesday how the group's plot -- which he said had been in the works since January 2006 -- was foiled.

The case began to take shape in January 2006, when an employee of a store told the FBI someone had brought a "disturbing" video to be duplicated, Christie said.

The video "depicted 10 young men who appeared to be in their early 20s shooting assault weapons at a firing range in a militia-like style while calling for jihad and shouting in Arabic 'Allah Akbar,' " (Arabic for "God is Great"), according to an FBI affidavit filed with the criminal complaints.

The FBI and Joint Terrorism Task Force began an investigation immediately, Christie said.

"Through the amazing efforts of these law enforcement officers, we were able to infiltrate cooperating witnesses into this terrorist cell," Christie said.

Two paid informants infiltrated the group, one in March 2006 and the other in July. Both of them "consensually recorded" meetings and conversations, according to the affidavit, filed by Special Agent John J. Ryan.

One quote from the alleged recordings was defendant Mohamad Ibrahim Shnewer saying, "My intent is to hit a heavy concentration of soldiers. ... This is exactly what we are looking for. You hit four, five or six Humvees and light the whole place [up] and retreat completely without any losses."

One of the informants claimed to have connections with an arms dealer who could sell the alleged conspirators AK-47 automatic machine guns and other weapons, according to the affidavit. Both took part in firearms training with the group, the affidavit said.

Men had collection of disturbing videos
Officials said the group had a collection of jihadist videos, including video of the last will and testament of two of the 19 hijackers from the September 11, 2001, attacks and video of Osama bin Laden calling Muslims to jihad.

The men also showed videos to each other of killings of U.S. military personnel around the world, officials said.

"They watched the blowing off of the arm of a United States Marine, and the room burst out into laughter," Christie said.

The men are believed to have been "inspired" by international terrorist groups, but not directly linked to a specific organization, he said.

He said defendant Shain Duka was heard on tape saying, "We can do a lot of damage with seven people. We can do big things."

A law enforcement source told CNN the group played paintball and test fired weapons as part of their training.

"These guys were clearly committed to the task they had set before them," Fran Townsend, the White House's homeland security adviser, told CNN.

Their goal was to figure out how to kill as many American soldiers as possible, Christie said.

The men had surveyed a number of bases but settled on Fort Dix because one of the defendants said he knew the base "like the back of his hand" because he had delivered pizza there, Christie said. (About Fort Dix)

"They were at the point where they wanted to obtain the automatic weapons that would be the final piece in their plan... to create carnage at Fort Dix," Christie said.

"I think it could have been a disaster," he said. "These people were ready for martyrdom."

Men arrested trying to buy weapons
"Today we dodged a bullet. In fact, when you look at the types of weapons this group was trying to purchase, we may have dodged a lot of bullets," Special Agent Jody Weis said.

The six -- three of them brothers -- were arrested Monday night "as two of the defendants were meeting a confidential government witness to purchase three AK-47 automatic machine guns, and four semi-automatic M-16s to be used in an attack they had been planning from at least January 2006," according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney's Office.

Six complaints were filed Tuesday, each naming one of the six as defendant.

The U.S. Attorney's Office said the three brothers involved, all with the last name Duka, were born in the former Yugoslavia and are illegally residing in the United States. It identified them as Eljvir, 23, Shain, 26, and Dritan, 28, and said the three operate businesses known as Qadr Inc., Colonial Roofing and National Roofing.

The other three men charged are Mohamad Ibrahim Shnewer, 22, of Cherry Hill, New Jersey, a U.S. citizen born in Jordan who is employed as a taxicab driver in Philadelphia; Serdar Tatar, 23, of Philadelphia, born in Turkey, whose last known employment was at a 7-Eleven; and Agron Abdullahu, 24, of Buena Vista Township, born in the former Yugoslavia and employed at a Shop-Rite Supermarket.

Abdullahu is charged only with aiding and abetting the Duka brothers' illegal possession of weapons, which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in federal prison, the attorney's office said.

The complaint said the group conducted firearms training in Gouldsboro, Pennsylvania, in the Pocono Mountains. It also said Shnewer conducted surveillance at several U.S. military sites: Fort Dix and Fort Monmouth in New Jersey, Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, and the U.S. Coast Guard building in Philadelphia.

It said Tatar acquired a map of Fort Dix and distributed it to others.

Christie: We have caught the core of this plot
While authorities are glad to have arrested them, the individuals are "hardly hard-core terrorists," one law enforcement source said.

Another source said that while the allegations are "troubling," they are "not the type that made the hair on the back of your neck stand up."

"We believe we have caught the absolute sole and core of this plot," Christie said.

Fort Dix is used to train members of the Army Reserve and National Guard for missions in Iraq, Afghanistan and around the world.

It was used in 1999 to house ethnic Albanian refugees from Kosovo, according to the Defense Department Web site.

CNN's Kevin Bohn and Kelli Arena contributed to this report.

if the US wasn't so paranoid about terrorism, and the press didn't give it such a beat up- both arguably out of proportion to the real risk- then would this have happened?

I imagine they were much more likely to have been inspired by content found online, not video clips from mainstream news sources. If we pretend that terrorism doesn't exist will that cause the extreme segment of the population to stop glorifying it?

yes.

i think radical islamists could give a shit about how "paranoid" the US is. they want Westerners to die in great numbers, and the reason they want it is because they think it's their duty to God.

"paranoia" potentially saved major loss of life here.

it's not about pretending it doesn't exist. it's about being.. well, more reasonable. blowing these things up out of proportion. creating paranoia. it's self perpetuating.

Mayhaps what you actually mean to critique is the military and political responses to terrorism. The perception of terrorism in the public sphere and media coverage of it... I have no idea how you could suggest that it should be downplayed. Any time there is a loss of life or diabolical plot its going to get press time, regardless of the who where why. There are people out there that are trying to kill me and I should take a chill pill? Sure, I'm less likely to die by terrorism than get struck by lightning, but at least lightning does so without intent.

the media does blow a lot of things out of proportion but i don't think that has much to do with causing the actual terror threat.




I don't see how this makes any sense. Preferring one way of death over another based on the cause's intent is ludicrous. Its not like you can be happy after you died because the lightning didn't mean to kill you but a terrorist did. What matters is the odds of actually being killed. Intent has nothing to do with it.

Its not prefering the method of death, its being more concerned about one than the other. Of course its probably also a lot easier to decrease one's risk of lighting strike than do anything to prevent a determined terrorist.

But yeah, this analogy blows hard especially when one considers the frequency of lightning strikes or terror attacks in my area. I really have no personal experience with either.

how exactly should the US be more reasonable when pursuing terrorists? i don't know exactly what you're trying to say. that these fellows were so inundated with news about the threat of terrorism that some kind of switch flipped and they decided they needed to kill people?

the logical leaps you're willing to make to blame American policy for something are sometimes astounding.

i'm not trying to suggest these guys watched fox news one day and the next day they all went out and bought rocket launchers. it's just that everyone- not just the usa, but i think it's fair to say that they're the main source- is going head over hells paranoid about terrorism, and it's out of proportion to the actual risk.


is this reasonable?

so just so i understand your argument - it's your contention that potential terrorists may become increasingly paranoid as a result of aggressive US policies against terrorism (e.g. gitmo) - and as a result of this increasing paranoia may then themselves become terrorists?

if you wanted to argue that they might be angered/inspired by things like US abuse of power (in general) - i can see that although i still don't buy it as the main cause. i just don't get the whole paranoia take.

i know i'm being obtuse here, sorry, one of those days at work, anyway. when i was talking about paranoia, i just meant generally in the populace.

Keep in mind it was a member of the public (video store clerk) who brought attention to the plot in the first place. Impossible to say if they would have taken action if general paranoia was at a lower level, but you could make the opposite argument and say that press coverage played a part in stopping the attack.

true, it works both ways.

do you guys have some sort of terrorism hotline for people to call if they see anything suspicious? you have to wonder how many wrong complaints, wasted man hours and false accusations there are for every case like this.

Yeah, that's reasonable.

Care to explain in any way shape or form how it's not?

If those people are US citizens, and their Constitutional rights like 'speedy trial' and 'competent legal representation' are not being upheld, then it's definitly unreasonable. I don't know enough on international law to comment on it if they are not Americans.


But paranoia is very real. I'm a little nervous about flying into London for the show in June. Especially after watching that show bomber simulation video that's going around the interweb.




Back on topic. The smoking gun has an FBI document detailing the investigation. It sounds pretty serious.

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2007/0508071ftdix1.html

this story kinda made me laugh. these 6 guys were planning on taking down fort dix...yeah good luck with that. also, they trained in the pocono mountains with paintball guns. they were practicing taking down a military base with PAINTBALL GUNS. al quida probably rejected them.

also 3 of them live around the corner from my grandmom

Fort Dix huh? Any chance that this was an attempted hate crime against the gays?

This really is pretty laughable. I mean, they got busted because they tried to copy a videotape. You mean they didn't have the resources to do that themselves in-house? Real pros we've got here.

http://wonkette.com/politics/lost-the-p ... 258602.php


Feds Nix Dix Six

The FBI has successfully broken up yet another fiendish terrorist plot on American soil. These brave defenders of freedom have once again ensured that Americans can rest easy, safe from the threat of a couple guys buying some guns and trying to… take over an Army base???

The plot, reported this morning by New York’s WNBC television and confirmed to the Washington Post by FBI officials, involved storming the base with automatic weapons and attempting to kill as many soldiers and other personnel as possible.

Ok. So, the plot was: six dudes from New Jersey buy some guns and storm Fort Dix. The Fort Dix that is full of lots and lots of Army reservists with way, way more guns. And, like, extensive military training and shit. Yes, thank god these terrorists have been caught and locked up before they could be killed within minutes of deciding to carry out the dumbest fucking terrorist plot we’ve ever heard of.

Hardly the dumbest. Terrorism is not just about body counts. A well timed hit could have taken out dozens in the mess hall or barracks and more importantly for them, proven a deadly point that even a military base full of armed guards can be successfully attacked on US soil. How does that make us feel about our shopping malls and schools? They want us to be scared. Also, think about how that attack would play out around the world. 'Brave muslims strike at the very heart of the great satan.'