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Yesterday, six men were arrested for plotting to attack Fort Dix in NJ and other targets in the area. The men, Muslims from (the former) Yugoslavia, Turkey and Jordan, were apprehended after the FBI conducted 14 months of surveillance and infiltrated their group.
The arrests came after two of the men tried to buy, per the Post, "AK-47 assault weapons, M-16s and grenade launchers" in their attempt to kill "as many American soldiers as possible." The FBI's involvement was prompted by a Kinko's clerk; The Daily News reports the clerk contacted the FBI in 2006 when he was asked to "convert from video to DVD a recording of men shooting rifles at a remote firing range shouting, 'Allah akbar!'" FBI Agent J.P. Weis said, "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."
The men, Eljivir Duka, Shain Duka, Dritan Duka, Agron Abdullahu, Shain Tatar and Mohamad Ibrahim Schnewer, lived in southern NJ and Philadelphia and were described as homegrown terrorists "inspired by Al Qaeda" by authorities, who emphasized that the men worked independently. The NY Times reports "the criminal complaint that details the plot describes an effort that was alternately ambitious and clumsy, with the men at turns declaring themselves eager to sacrifice their lives in the name of Allah and worrying about getting arrested or deported for buying weapons or possessing a map of a military base."
The men, ages 22 to 28, held jobs ranging from roofer to cabdriver to pizza deliveryman, and had no clear motivation other than their stated desire to kill United States soldiers in the name of Islam. They considered a variety of targets, including the annual Army-Navy football game and warships docked in the Port of Philadelphia, but ultimately dismissed Dover Air Force Base in Delaware as having too much security and picked Fort Dix largely because one of their fathers owned a restaurant nearby that delivered to the base.Apparently pizza guys to Fort Dix don't need to be fingerprinted and undergo background checks when they deliver.
Neighbors of the men were shocked. In Cherry Hill, NJ, Michael Levine told the Star-Ledger, "They were working people. They went to work every day and came home and played soccer on the lawn." Another who attended high school with two of the men said, "We did teenage stuff. Drinking. Girls. Stuff like that." The Post also drives home fear with an "Evil Hid in Plain Sight" article. The NY Times notes that the suspects' preparations were full of "chilling yet undeniably strange" details and the Star-Ledger has a timeline.
The six men will have a detention hearing on Friday.
Photograph of Fort Dix by Mel Evans/AP
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Ummm... Last I checked, there WAS NO Yugoslavia.
(This isn't Jen's fault - it's the AP's...)
How could anyone be shocked that Muslims are motivated to kill Americans? Are these "shocked" people living under a rock? We have murdered thousands of innocent Iraqis and we don't expect reprisal? What would Americas do if a foreign power invaded Kansas and began killing our people under the banner of "protecting Muslim freedom?"
Honestly, the stupidity of the prototypical conservative American amazes me: Ignorant of history, frozen in a time when we were supposedly the "good guys", drawn to knee-jerk imperialism, covertly racist and GCDed to a "kill'em all" mentality...how can so many of us be duped by this philosophy?
Oh please.
Muslims want to kill everyone who is not like them, this predates the Iraq War by a millennium or two.
If people drop the dime on this,
I'm dropping the dime on all the survivalists in the pocono mountains and their hunting compound and automatic weapons. Oh, and they have much more weaponry than these dolts.
As Keith olbermann mentioned last night, the FBI arrested six morons.
Raman, ya noodle head, I think it's the suspects who are ignorant of history! It was American intervention in the former Yugoslavia on behalf of the Kosovar Muslims that prevented their total annihilation. And, in a gesture of thanks, these guys want to murder their neighbors.
Uhh, gee, you're welcome.
at least it was a military target and not civilians...
at least it was a military target and not civilians...
Re you kidding me? Um, civilians work on military bases too. Next you'll say at least it was New Jersey and NIMBY!
The first attack that attempted to knock down the WTC was in 1993.
Wow, these guys are sharp. They got busted by a Kinko's employee because they wanted to convert some terrorist video from VHS to DVD. This is almost a satire.
Raman, about 90% of the dead in Iraq were killed by other Muslims. I don't think our team is driving the suicide the vans into marketplaces and mosques. Apparently the only way to keep these people from killing each other is to leave them under a repressive dictator and starve the country of supplies. Wait, wasn't that one of Al Qaeda's complaints before 9/11?
How convenient that it is suddenly found the week the president's polls drop lower than Carters and in a locale that is not exactly Bush friendly. This smells of a political ploy just in time to help Americans swallow Bush's reason for vetoing the resolution passed by congress on the Iraq time line and to try to sway some of the fallen conservatives who may be finally coming to grips that their idol is not as grand as they were led to believe. Wanna bet these guys ever actually get convicted of anything. They are probably being paid by our tax dollars to go along with it.
I work at Fort Monmouth Army Base, which was mentioned as being one of the bases that was apparently surveilled by the terrorists. We have not been able to get any kind of pizza delivery or food delivery since 9/11 - if we want pizza we have to make a trip and pick it up ourselves! I'm surprised that Fort Dix would let food delivery people in!
Are we sure Aqua Teen's not behind this one?
The term ex Yugoslavia is misleading most of public because term Yugoslavia is commonly associated with Milosevic and his dictatorship.
The correct place of origin of some of the suspects is KOSOVO which is still loosely part of Serbia. These suspects are Kosovo Albanian Muslims, the same people NATO and US helped by bombing Serbia in 1999. US is also supporting their fight for independence from Serbia in order for them to form their own “secular/democratic Muslim-dominating” country.
Serbia was dealing with Kosovo Albanian extremists since early 80’s. These extremists eventually grew stronger with support of the Western Europe and US and caused total civil war within KOSOVO that lead to significant number of civilian casualties.
Raman, speaking of "ignorant of history", you are the worst time of armchair liberal, spouting off platitudes and making sweeping generalizations without looking at how the world, and history, operates.
Do us a favor and go finish your shift at the Food Coop, I think the raisins need restocking.
Iraq was teribble mistake. The result of invasion did not bring any good to US or Iraqi people. All these US solders deployed and stationed in Iraq should be pursuing Bin Laden and his pals in Afganistan and Pakistan instead.
Umm, OK what is everyone beef with Raman? You think Muslims hate us because they are muslims? Talk about drinking the KoolAid and being clueless.
The ignorance of American to their acts in foriegn countries is pretty amazing. I still remember people asking why the Olympics in Athens might expose Americans and the American delegation to attacks- jee- could it have to do with our country installing a Facsist government there? And Iran, and Nicaraugua, pretty much every country in Central and South American (amazing that they arent coming for us with knives), Korea, Vietnam, Phillipenes, etc etc. So way dont you folks read a little history and then get back to Raman on that subject.
Oh yeah- and Isreal- the muslims arent to happy about that either- but that is a different issue.
If you want to fight the GWOT- open your eyes and actually become aware of what people around the world think of us- something American doesnt do enough of. Kow your enemy and all that.
That said- yeah, Jersey arrested a bunch of lunkheads looking for Jihad-poon.