The defendants, all men in their 20s from the former Yugoslavia and the Middle East, include a pizza deliveryman suspected of using his job to scout out the military base.
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“Today we dodged a bullet. In fact, when you look at the type of weapons that this group was trying to purchase, we may have dodged a lot of bullets,” said FBI agent J.P. Weiss.
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“We had a group that was forming a platoon to take on an army. They identified their target, they did their reconnaissance. They had maps. And they were in the process of buying weapons. Luckily, we were able to stop that.”
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Authorities said there was no direct evidence connecting them to any international terror organizations such as Al Qaeda. But several of the men said they were ready to kill and die “in the name of Allah,” according to court records.
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Their goal was “to kill as many American soldiers as possible” in attacks with mortars, rocket-propelled grenades and guns, prosecutors said.
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Investigators said they infiltrated the group with an informant well over a year ago and bided their time while they secretly recorded the defendants, five of whom lived in Cherry Hill, a Philadelphia suburb about 20 miles from Fort Dix.
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“This is what law enforcement is supposed to do in the post-9/11 era — stay one step ahead of those who are attempting to cause harm to innocent American citizens,” U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie said.
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Weiss saluted the unidentified New Jersey store clerk who noticed the suspicious video as the “unsung hero” of the case. “That’s why we’re here today — because of the courage and heroism of that individual,” the FBI agent said.
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In addition to plotting the attack on Fort Dix, the defendants spoke of attacking a Navy installation in Philadelphia during the annual Army-Navy football game, and conducted surveillance at other military installations in the region, prosecutors said.
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One defendant, Eljvir Duka, was recorded as saying: “In the end, when it comes to defending your religion, when someone is trying attacks your religion, your way of life, then you go jihad.”
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[…]
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“It doesn’t matter to me whether I get locked up, arrested or get taken away,” another defendant, Serdar Tatar, was alleged to have said. “Or I die, it doesn’t matter. I’m doing it in the name of Allah.”
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The men trained by playing paintball in the woods in New Jersey and taking target practice at a firing range in Pennsylvania’s Pocono Mountains, where they had rented a house, authorities said.
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They often watched terror training videos, clips featuring Usama bin Laden, a tape containing the last will and testament of some of the Sept. 11 hijackers, and tapes of armed attacks on U.S. military personnel, erupting in laughter when one plotter noted that a Marine’s arm was blown off in an ambush, authorities said.
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[…]
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In court documents, prosecutors said the suspects came to the attention of authorities in January 2006 when a Mount Laurel, N.J., shopkeeper alerted the FBI about a “disturbing” video he had been asked to copy onto a DVD.
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The video showed 10 young men in their early 20s “shooting assault weapons at a firing range … while calling for jihad and shouting in Arabic ‘Allah Akbar’ (God is great),” the complaint said. The 10 included six of those arrested, authorities said.
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By March 2006, the group had been infiltrated by an informant who developed a relationship with Shnewer, and the informant secretly recorded meetings last August, according to court documents.
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One of the suspects, Tatar, worked at his father’s pizzeria and made deliveries to the base, using that opportunity to scout out Fort Dix for an attack, authorities said.
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“Clearly, one of the guys had an intimate knowledge of the base from having been there delivering pizzas,” Christie said.
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The men also allegedly conducted surveillance at other area military installations, including Fort Monmouth in New Jersey, Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, and a Philadelphia Coast Guard station.
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[…]
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“If these people did something, then they deserve to be punished to the fullest extent of the law,” said Sohail Mohammed, a lawyer who represented scores of detainees after the 2001 attacks. “But when the government says ‘Islamic militants,’ it sends a message to the public that Islam and militancy are synonymous.”
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Some thoughts:
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1.) Thank God a desire to avoid “Islamophobia” cries didn’t prevent that shopkeeper from sounding the alarm! I can hear the PC-ers now: “Is it a crime for Muslims to play paintball? You racist!” If he had played by CAIR’s rules, the Fort Dix bloodbath would’ve had a far greater likelihood of success. It needs to be hammered home that liberal “sensitivity” is going to get people killed.
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(Yes, I heard about the other shootings reported today. I remember Virginia Tech. There’s plenty of violence that’s not Islam-related, and obviously we have to be ever vigilant about suspicious activity in general. But the point is that we cannot let our desire to be inoffensive smother our survival instinct, and blind us to factors like religion that, yes Virginia, are relevant.)
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2.) What if these idiots didn’t record anything in the first place, or weren’t so careless with their words at the shooting range? It’s scary to think this might not have been preventable, and even scarier to consider how sophisticated their planning was, even without al-Qaeda training (if there wasn’t…). Another reason why we have to confront not just terrorist groups, but the ideology of jihad head-on.
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3.) A couple of these guys were reportedly in the US illegally—a dire problem on which both parties are MIA.
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In the Corner Mark Krikorian has more concerns, while Cliff May sees a hopeful sign. Go read ‘em both.