View Full Version : Plot to kill soldiers at Fort Dix foiled
Don Corleone
05-08-2007, 22:55
Frankly, I'm a little surprised that by now, nobody has posted anything about this: Plot to kill soldiers at Fort Dix (http://www.wnbc.com/news/13274813/detail.html?dl=mainclick). I guess nobody else knows what to make of it any more than I do.
It would appear that 3 ethnic Albanians, in the country illegally, a US citizen originally from Jordan and two other men, one possibly Turkish, were arrested for plotting to attack Fort Dix with assault rifles and shoot as many soldiers as they could, going out with guns blazing.
I usually get a little irritated when Tribesman implies this all fishy and the government knows fullly well that the accused are innocent. But in this case, it just might actually be the case. For one thing, it seems odd that the government let these guys go for as long and as far as they did without bringing them in. Second, the statements coming out of the White House, the FBI and local law enforcement don't seem to line up. The local law enforcement make it sound like they caught Bin Laden's 6 lieutenants, the White House took the unusual position that there's no reason to assume they have links to international terrorism, while the FBI is remaining strangely silent.
I've never known the administration to advocate the position that 6 accussed terrorists just might have been working independently. Is it just me, or does something seem odd here? :help:
I saw it earlier, but there just didn't seem to be much to discuss then. Not enough details. Can it be true that they were caught via good police work and a tip? I'd be curious to see if they rang any bells through the wiretapping program or other anti-terror security measures we have sacrificed liberty for. :rolleyes: Maybe that's why the feds are quiet.
At least they targeted a military installation, which puts them slightly higher than the usual marketplace/suicide bomber scum in my book. Can't believe they were stupid enough to send a training tape to be burnt to DVD though. I figure most of those get watched by the processors, checking for homemade pr0n. ~D
Tribesman
05-08-2007, 23:31
I usually get a little irritated when Tribesman implies this all fishy and the government knows fullly well that the accused are innocent.
Thats slanderous Don:whip: naughty boy
Is it just me, or does something seem odd here?
Perhaps due to their reputation for exageration and plain bullexcrement they are playing it clever for once .
You may have noticed with the British , when they go all out in the press and make a big scare story it often turns out to complete rubbish that ends in no convictions or even charges , when they keep it relatively quiet and have lengthy surveilance and sting operations they get results .
compare the ricin and new suicide vest cases with the fertiliser plot .
HoreTore
05-08-2007, 23:48
Targeting a military installation like this, wouldn't that be an act of war, not terrorism? It isn't done by a state, all right, but it isn't aimed at causing fear among a population(just an armed force) either, so it doesn't really qualify as terrorism either...
Guerrilla war, perhaps?
Zaknafien
05-09-2007, 00:38
well the 'great' police-work was a tip from the dvd-copier who turned in their amateur-jihad bible school training video they had wanted him to make copies of for promotional values. these guys are hacks, if anything.
Fortunately, this sheds light on how easy it is to target US military bases. Every installation I've ever lived on could be attacked at any time of day any day of the week. It'd be extremely easy to smuggle both men and arms onto the base and kill an entire barracks full of soldiers who would be defenseless.
This group had planned to masquarade as pizza delivery boys, which is pretty scary since they easily get on posts across the US every day with no checks.
gunslinger
05-09-2007, 03:24
I've never known the administration to advocate the position that 6 accussed terrorists just might have been working independently. Is it just me, or does something seem odd here?
I remember one from a few months ago when the feds got an undercover into a group that was planning to blow up government buildings. I think the undercover actually convinced them that he had ties to O.B.L., and the official line was that they were just a bunch of morons who really had no clue what they were doing. They got charged anyway, though.
Seamus Fermanagh
05-09-2007, 03:43
Targeting a military installation like this, wouldn't that be an act of war, not terrorism? It isn't done by a state, all right, but it isn't aimed at causing fear among a population(just an armed force) either, so it doesn't really qualify as terrorism either...
Guerrilla war, perhaps?
Well, if the U.S. citizens were acting under the aegis of Al Qaeda, then it would come under the war on terror and they could be tried for treason. Since the feds are downplaying such a connection, we have home-grown terror warriors who'll need trials for conspiracy to commit etc.
The non-U.S. citizens had better hope for no connection to Al Qaeda for without such a connection they'll be tried as criminals. With such a connection they qualify as enemy agent saboteurs and qualify for summary execution.
Minimal honor points for trying to target the military as opposed to a shopping mall. Assess the usual point penalties for being terrorist scum and iredeemably stupid.
Devastatin Dave
05-09-2007, 06:16
It would appear that 3 ethnic Albanians,
Boy, did we pick the wrong side in that fight...:no:
What a bunch of maroons: (http://apnews.myway.com/article/20070509/D8P0HUE80.html) ""We had a group that was forming a platoon to take on an army."
Maroons, I tell ya.
ShadeHonestus
05-09-2007, 06:42
What a bunch of maroons: (http://apnews.myway.com/article/20070509/D8P0HUE80.html) ""We had a group that was forming a platoon to take on an army."
Maroons, I tell ya.
No doubt tortured into involvement in the plot by my fellow Marines at Gitmo.
I believe its Double Top Secret General Order Number 210.
ShadeHonestus
05-09-2007, 06:59
Torture is teh funny.
Well its is all the rage in the funny papers.
Major Robert Dump
05-09-2007, 07:25
Boy, did we pick the wrong side in that fight...:no:
hahahaha:cheerleader:
Major Robert Dump
05-09-2007, 07:28
If they were watching them so closely anyway, I don't understand why they wouldn't wait until after the plotters actually had the weapons. Then you could really pile on the charges, and the case would seem a little more concrete.
Anyway, the plotter who was the pizza man worked for his dad. Talk about hurting sales.
Pretty convenient really. I don't care much for America's "War on Terror", have fun with it; if you ever get sick of being scared our doors are open. ~D
Banquo's Ghost
05-09-2007, 09:15
A small collection of deluded people foiled by reasonable police work.
As I've said before, if the USA was really facing a serious terrorist threat, even half as well organised as those Europe had to deal with in the latter part of last century, there would have been far more successful attacks. Internally, most of the military installations are still incredibly soft, let alone civilian targets.
I have no reason to doubt Zaknafien's assertion that pizza delivery boys can simply drive onto military bases, which is another demonstration that no-one in power is actually taking the terrorist threat as seriously as they say. It's like Heathrow being closed down and surrounded by tanks while the baggage handlers and other applicants for low-paid work are taken on from unvetted queues at local Jobcentres.
If al-Qaeda had been properly organised rather than opportunistic, they'd have had sleeper cells set up before September 11th and much of the country would have been paralysed from then on - just look at the fear the Washington sniper caused.
Give me twenty dedicated operatives and I could really terrify the US population for maybe six months, perhaps longer. (Note to Echelon - hypothetically, old fruit, purely hypothetically :lipsrsealed2:)
Zaknafien
05-09-2007, 11:56
A small collection of deluded people foiled by reasonable police work.
As I've said before, if the USA was really facing a serious terrorist threat, even half as well organised as those Europe had to deal with in the latter part of last century, there would have been far more successful attacks. Internally, most of the military installations are still incredibly soft, let alone civilian targets.
I have no reason to doubt Zaknafien's assertion that pizza delivery boys can simply drive onto military bases, which is another demonstration that no-one in power is actually taking the terrorist threat as seriously as they say. It's like Heathrow being closed down and surrounded by tanks while the baggage handlers and other applicants for low-paid work are taken on from unvetted queues at local Jobcentres.
If al-Qaeda had been properly organised rather than opportunistic, they'd have had sleeper cells set up before September 11th and much of the country would have been paralysed from then on - just look at the fear the Washington sniper caused.
Give me twenty dedicated operatives and I could really terrify the US population for maybe six months, perhaps longer. (Note to Echelon - hypothetically, old fruit, purely hypothetically :lipsrsealed2:)
Exactly. There is no real terrorist threat in America, aside from home-grown whackos. The entire "Alqaeda" ghost is drummed up by the administration to keep Americans delusioned and afriad and willing to allow for more wars and a stripping away of civil liberties.
Frankly, I'm a little surprised that by now, nobody has posted anything about this: Plot to kill soldiers at Fort Dix (http://www.wnbc.com/news/13274813/detail.html?dl=mainclick). I guess nobody else knows what to make of it any more than I do.
It would appear that 3 ethnic Albanians, in the country illegally, a US citizen originally from Jordan and two other men, one possibly Turkish, were arrested for plotting to attack Fort Dix with assault rifles and shoot as many soldiers as they could, going out with guns blazing.
I've never known the administration to advocate the position that 6 accussed terrorists just might have been working independently. Is it just me, or does something seem odd here? :help:
I was going to post this yesterday afternoon but decided not to waste my time.
2 things spring to mind don, one fishy one an observation. Congress is about to discuss immigration again, the bust happens now on what appears on the surface to be a hack job, I mean from what we have so far this dosent look like a real professional job. The timing of the arrests are fishy to me.
Immigration, I believe 3 of these clowns are here illegally, 2 others on a green card? What a great way to set off the debate for immigration, examples like these are a shinning example of why we need immigration reform in a big way.
Don Corleone
05-09-2007, 14:20
Exactly. There is no real terrorist threat in America, aside from home-grown whackos. The entire "Alqaeda" ghost is drummed up by the administration to keep Americans delusioned and afriad and willing to allow for more wars and a stripping away of civil liberties.
Yeah, we must have deluded ourselves, and in reality, this was done by Timothy McVeigh's drinking buddies:
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v334/tharris00/210px-Seconds_after_first_plane.jpg
I appreciate that you have pretty strongly held views. It might be helpful if you ocassionally challenged them with some healthy doses of reality.
@Banquo: You know, I don't know what to say on that front. I can't say I understand why exactly we haven't been attacked in the past 5 1/2 years. I don't think our security is anywhere near good enough to actually stop something. Perhaps the one thing the Bush administration was right about with Iraq was that it did draw them all to Iraq (as opposed to coming over here). I honestly don't know.
Zaknafien
05-09-2007, 14:26
Oh, i used to believe in the whole "bin laden's going to get us" routine too, but that was before I got into the military intelligence community. While 9/11 was carried out by islamic extremists, their connections to a 'global network' are sketchy at best, and limited to idealogy and faith, not any sort of heirarchy or command network. If AQ was in the US today in any significant numbers, you'd see attacks on bowling alleys and malls every week of the month.
Devastatin Dave
05-09-2007, 15:03
Oh, i used to believe in the whole "bin laden's going to get us" routine too, but that was before I got into the military intelligence community. While 9/11 was carried out by islamic extremists, their connections to a 'global network' are sketchy at best, and limited to idealogy and faith, not any sort of heirarchy or command network. If AQ was in the US today in any significant numbers, you'd see attacks on bowling alleys and malls every week of the month.
Then, with all due respect, you are either a fool or illiterate and don't take your job very seriously. I hope to God that you are not holding post of importants and are limited to cleaning toilets in a controled area.:dizzy2:
CrossLOPER
05-09-2007, 15:12
Then, with all due respect, you are either a fool or illiterate and don't take your job very seriously. I hope to God that you are not holding post of importants and are limited to cleaning toilets in a controled area.:dizzy2:
He is and unusual flavor of military personnel, isn't he? He has a point.
Then, with all due respect, you are either a fool or illiterate and don't take your job very seriously. I hope to God that you are not holding post of importants and are limited to cleaning toilets in a controled area.:dizzy2:
Lol at the "importants" of literacy when posting on an internet forum!
~;)
Banquo's Ghost
05-09-2007, 15:26
@Banquo: You know, I don't know what to say on that front. I can't say I understand why exactly we haven't been attacked in the past 5 1/2 years. I don't think our security is anywhere near good enough to actually stop something. Perhaps the one thing the Bush administration was right about with Iraq was that it did draw them all to Iraq (as opposed to coming over here). I honestly don't know.
I think there's a good deal of truth in the "roach motel" theory. Al-qaeda does not have a strong central organisation and they got very lucky with 9-11 - it really should never have happened. They also make the prime mistake of "amateur" terror groups by going for the big extravaganza, rather than sustained terror that makes people really uneasy in their beds. As has been noted before, they achieved the over-reaction they desired and now it's far easier for them to try and kill Americans in Iraq than mount complex operations in the homeland.
If they really had an organised political outcome in mind, 9-11 would have been the opening move of a protracted campaign. The 9-11 operation was in planning and development for a long time - had they been switched on, they could have arranged a lot of much smaller scale but nasty follow-ups creating paranoia and distrust of the government rather than overwhelming popular support.
Having said that, I suspect the intelligence services in the US are far more switched on than they were, and have actually foiled quite a lot of plans that we don't get to hear about. As Tribesman noted, the really successful counter-terrorism tends to get very low publicity as methods would be put at risk. I believe that the US is getting much better at real counter-terrorism, and there is much stronger and productive co-ordination between international agencies, which is why I despair at the histrionics put on for the cameras and public consumption.
You also have a pretty secure and defensible border (well, for counter-terrorism purposes) which presents unique problems for organised terror from the Middle East. That's why a serious and professional threat would have had its assets in place before the signature statement, and alongside better preparedness and agency competence, why you are probably safer now than at any time in your history. Also incidentally, why you don't need your liberties trashed by the government.
ShadeHonestus
05-09-2007, 19:29
Give me twenty dedicated operatives and I could really terrify the US population for maybe six months, perhaps longer. (Note to Echelon - hypothetically, old fruit, purely hypothetically :lipsrsealed2:)
Are Banquo or Ghost on the "no fly" list?
Blodrast
05-09-2007, 21:32
Are Banquo or Ghost on the "no fly" list?
They are now.
Don Corleone
05-09-2007, 21:33
They are now.
I believe our esteemed moderator is on his way to a prison in Kazakhstan, that doesn't actually exist. :curtain:
GeneralHankerchief
05-09-2007, 21:53
Well, this is quite interesting.
I know for a fact that there was no local anti-Muslim sentiment that could possibly set them off and "go jihad", as I live in the same town that most of them do and were arrested in.
The town has a large Jewish population and is thus quite tolerant of others. Holocaust history is particularly emphasized in courses, I'm sure much more than in other areas of the country. My only conclusion is that these people had prejudices that came from elsewhere and were simply crazy.
ShadeHonestus
05-10-2007, 08:17
It would be interesting to hear if any, of those involved, as legalized citizens or those holding green cards were of the 20,000 or so refugees which were brought over to the U.S. as refugees by the Clinton administration and allowed to naturalize or go home. Ironically a large number of these were housed at Fort Dix and referred to being there and in the U.S. as paradise.
Devastatin Dave
05-10-2007, 17:59
It would be interesting to hear if any, of those involved, as legalized citizens or those holding green cards were of the 20,000 or so refugees which were brought over to the U.S. as refugees by the Clinton administration and allowed to naturalize or go home. Ironically a large number of these were housed at Fort Dix and referred to being there and in the U.S. as paradise.
Like I said before, we fought on the wrong side.
Update that may address some of Don's concerns. (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/10/nyregion/10informer.html?_r=1&ref=nyregion&oref=slogin)
The Role of an F.B.I. Informer Draws Praise as Well as Questions About Legitimacy
By DAVID KOCIENIEWSKI, May 10, 2007
It was August 2006 when one of the young Muslim men accused of plotting to kill soldiers at Fort Dix first broached the idea, according to the authorities. Talking to an informer who was secretly taping the exchange, the young man said that he thought he could round up six or seven other men willing to take part, and that a rocket-propelled grenade might be the most effective weapon, the authorities said.
And he had one more notion: He wanted the informer to lead the attack, according to a federal complaint. “I am at your services,” the young man is quoted as telling the informer, who had presented himself as an Egyptian with a military background.
That moment, recorded on tape and submitted in federal court this week in Camden, N.J., as the authorities charged six Muslim men in the plot, captures something of the complexity of using informers in terror investigations. The informer, sent to penetrate a loose group of men who liked to talk about jihad and fire guns in the woods, had come to be seen by the suspects as the person who might actually show them how an act of terror could be carried off.
Indeed, over the months that followed, as the targets of the investigation spoke with a sometimes unfocused zeal about waging holy war, the informer, one of two used in the investigation, would tell them that he could get them the sophisticated weapons they wanted. He would accompany them on surveillance missions to military installations, debating the risks, and when the men looked ready to purchase the weapons, it was the informer who seemed to be pushing the idea of buying the deadliest items, startling at least one of the suspects.
Since 9/11, law enforcement officials have praised the work of such informers, saying they have been doing exactly what they should be doing — gaining access to the world of a possible threat, playing along to see just how far suspects were willing to go, and allowing the authorities to act before the potential terrorists did.
In the case of the men arrested this week, the authorities have been emphatic: The men were prepared to kill, and to die in the effort, and the informer was vital to preventing any loss of life.
“Their intentions and motivation were obviously well established before the investigation began,” said Michael Drewniak, a spokesman for the United States attorney in New Jersey, Christopher J. Christie, who announced the arrests of the men on Tuesday.
The authorities made the arrests and ended the operation, officials said, because the men were at last ready to acquire the weapons they had sought.
As the case goes forward, the role of the main informer will almost surely be contested. Over the years, informers in terror cases have become the focus of efforts by defense lawyers and others to call into question the legitimacy of the investigations. They have often sought to show that informers engaged in entrapment.
“The police are allowed to use some enticement in cases,” said Troy Archie, a lawyer for one of the six men charged, Dritan Duka. “But it depends how far they go.”
Certainly, the work of informers can sometimes seem murky. In one instance, the informer who was the main witness in a major terror financing case in Brooklyn in 2005 almost did not make it to the witness stand after he set himself on fire in front of the White House to protest his compensation by his F.B.I. handlers. The informer helped win a conviction, but wound up being prosecuted himself for writing bad checks while working for the F.B.I.
In the criminal complaint they filed against the six men in New Jersey, federal prosecutors took the step of including information about an earlier problem involving their main informer. Prosecutors acknowledged that the informer, two months before he became involved in the Fort Dix case, had misled investigators in order to protect a friend.
The prosecutors added that “the F.B.I. has been able to independently corroborate the information provided” by the informer in this case through recordings and surveillance tapes.
The complaint captures only a small portion of the interactions between the informer and the six suspects during the 14 months they were associated. Defense lawyers assigned yesterday to represent two of the central figures in the case objected to what they called the selective excerpts of conversations submitted by the prosecutors.
“The prosecutors have put out only snippets of conversations, rather than the entire context of conversations,” said Rocco C. Cipparone, who represents another of the six, Mohamad Ibrahim Shnewer.
However, a close reading of even the limited material in the criminal complaint suggests a relationship in which some of the suspects never fully trusted the informer, but nonetheless shared secrets with him about a wide assortment of illicit plans and illegal weapons.
Without doubt, in most of the instances described in the complaint, the informer seems to be merely facilitating the menacing plans of the suspects or following along. But on some occasions, the informer appears to have played a slightly more provocative role.
He first struck up an acquaintance with Mr. Shnewer, a cabdriver, in March 2006, two months after a store clerk alerted the authorities that a man had asked him to make a DVD copy of a videotape that appeared to be a terrorist training exercise.
The complaint suggests that the informer quickly began to establish a rapport with Mr. Shnewer, apparently one of the group’s leaders. The informer was shown terror training videotapes, included in talks about obtaining weapons and invited to be the group’s tactical leader in any assault. He later went with Mr. Shnewer on trips to scout a variety of military targets.
Months elapsed without significant developments. The complaint indicates that in October 2006, seven months after the informer first entered the ranks of the men, it might have been the informer who helped jump-start another suspect, Serdar Tatar, who still had not followed through on his promise to get a map of the base from his father’s pizzeria near Fort Dix. The two men were discussing Fort Dix, the complaint said, when the informer “expressed anger at the United States.”
“You want to make them pay for something that they did,” Mr. Tatar said to the informer, according to the complaint. “O.K., you need maps?”
Soon, Mr. Tatar provided the map, the complaint says.
In November, it was the informer who volunteered that he might have a source who could provide the machine guns and heavier arms the men had long been talking about.
“Shnewer expressed interest,” the complaint says.
By early this year, the complaint asserts, the informer accompanied the men to a shooting range in the Poconos, and later practiced assault maneuvers with them using paintball guns. During those exercises, the suspects mused about obtaining explosives and whether to attack a warship when it was docked in Philadelphia.
Eljvir Duka, one of three brothers among the suspects, offered a rationale for their planned attacks, saying, according to the complaint, that when someone threatened “your religion, your way of life, then you go jihad.”
But no specific dates were discussed or plans committed to.
And when efforts to finally get the more potent weapons seemed close to producing results, the informer presented a list of possible arms that could now be bought. The list included fully automatic machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades. But it was the men who scaled back their ambitions.
In fact, one of the suspects, Dritan Duka, seemed taken aback by the informer’s listing of the heavy artillery. Mr. Duka appeared to ask the informer if there was anything more he should know about the informer’s background or intentions, including whether he was religious. Asked why he seemed alarmed, Mr. Duka said to the informer, “There was some stuff on the list that was heavy.” And he added an expletive.
In the last recorded conversation cited in the complaint, the men opted only for the machine guns. They would “hold off” on anything more.
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