Thursday, May 21, 2009

Sting operation foils New York terror plot/Police Say Suspects in N.Y. Bomb Plot Acted Alone/NY terror suspects to appear in court

Sting operation foils New York terror plot
By Harvey Morris in New York
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009
Published: May 21 2009 06:33 | Last updated: May 21 2009 06:33
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/30eee4aa-45c7-11de-803f-00144feabdc0.html



US authorities said Wednesday night they had arrested four men for planning a missile attack on planes at a military base in New York State and a bombing plot against a synagogue in New York City.

The detainees included the son of Afghan immigrants to the US, who was alleged to have said he was unhappy at deaths in Afghanistan and Pakistan caused by US forces and wanted to return to his homeland to do “something to America”.

The four, all with western-sounding names and Muslim aliases, were arrested after they tried to buy Stinger anti-aircraft missiles from a Federal Bureau of Investigation informant, according to court papers.

They are alleged to have planned the bombing of a synagogue in New York’s Bronx borough and a Stinger missile attack on a National Guard base outside the city.

The FBI said the four planned to use 30 pounds of plastic explosives in the synagogue bombing in the Riverdale district of the city after identifying possible Jewish targets.

The accused included James Cromitie – also known as Abdul Rahman – who was said to have spoken to the FBI informant about the prospect of dying a martyr in Afghanistan. Also named in the complaint by US prosecutors were David Williams (aka Daoud), Onta Williams (aka Hamza) and Laguerre Payen (aka Amin or Almondo).

The four were due to appear in court in White Plains, New York on Thursday.

Peter King, a New York Republican congressman, told CNN the suspects planned to undertake their attack on Wednesday using a car bomb outside the synagogue. “Tonight was the night the attacks were being carried out,” he said.




Police Say Suspects in N.Y. Bomb Plot Acted Alone
By JAVIER C. HERNANDEZ and SEWELL CHAN
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: May 21, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/22/nyregion/22terror.html?ref=global-home



The four men arrested Wednesday night in what the authorities said was a plot to bomb two synagogues in the Bronx and shoot down military planes at an Air National Guard base in Newburgh, N.Y. were petty criminals who appeared to be acting alone, not in concert with any terrorist organization, the New York City police commissioner said Thursday.

Raymond W. Kelly, the New York City police commissioner, spoke about the case on Thursday morning in front of the Riverdale Jewish Center.

The men were arrested in an elaborate sting operation at around 9 p.m. on Wednesday after planting what they believed to be bombs in cars outside the Riverdale Temple, a Reform synagogue, and the nearby Riverdale Jewish Center, an Orthodox synagogue.

The men did not know that the bombs, obtained with the help of an informant for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, were fake.

In a news conference at the Riverdale Jewish Center, one of the two synagogues said to be the targets of the plot, the commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, offered new details about the four defendants — James Cromitie, David Williams, Onta Williams and Laguerre Payen — all of whom are to arraigned in Federal District Court in White Plains, N.Y., later Thursday morning.

The men, all of whom live in Newburgh, about 60 miles north of New York City, had met in prison. Mr. Cromitie, 53, who authorities described as the plot’s leader, had lived in Brooklyn and had as many as 27 arrests for minor crimes both in upstate New York and in New York City, Mr. Kelly said. Mr. Cromitie, David Williams, and Onta Williams were native-born Americans, while Mr. Payen was born in Haiti and is a Haitian citizen.

The four men arrested are all Muslim, a law enforcement official said. Mr. Cromitie, whose parents had lived in Afghanistan before his birth, had told the informant that he was upset about the war in Afghanistan and that that he wanted to do “something to America.” Mr. Cromitie stated “the best target” — the World Trade Center — “was hit already,” according to the complaint.

Mr. Kelly said: “They stated that they wanted to commit jihad. They were disturbed about what was happening in Afghanistan and Pakistan, that Muslims were being killed. They were making statements that Jews were killed in this attack and that would be all right — that sort of thing.”

“It speaks to our concern about homegrown terrorism,” Mr. Kelly said.

The arrests capped what officials described as a “painstaking investigation” that began in June 2008 involving an F.B.I. agent who had been told by a federal informant of the men’s desire to attack targets in America. As part of the plot, the men intended to fire Stinger missiles at military aircraft at the base, which is at Stewart International Airport, officials said.

The charges against the four men represent some of the most significant allegations of domestic terrorism in some time, and come months into a new presidential administration, as President Obama grapples with the question of how to handle detainees at the Guantánamo Bay camp in Cuba.

In April, Mr. Cromitie and the three other men, who were in their 20s and 30s, selected the synagogues and the air base as their targets. On May 6, the defendants traveled to a warehouse in Connecticut to obtain what they believed was a surface-to-air guided missile system and three improvised explosive devices, all of which were incapable of being fired or detonated. They then brought them back to a storage facility in Newburgh, the criminal complaint said.

Rabbi Jonathan I. Rosenblatt, the senior rabbi at the Riverdale Jewish Center, said the police informed him on Wednesday evening that his synagogue was a target of the plot, as well as the Riverdale Temple, a short distance away, on Independence Avenue. Outside the synagogues on Wednesday night, the streets were eerily quiet.

Rabbi Rosenblatt said in a phone interview Wednesday that he took the news with “shock, surprise — a sense of disbelief that something which is supposed to belong to the world of front pages and the evening news had invaded the quiet world of our synagogue.”

Jonathan Mark, associate editor of The Jewish Week newspaper who grew up in Riverdale, said it would have been the third plot in the past decade against the synagogues in Riverdale.

The plot unfolded Wednesday night as one of the suspects placed what he believed were homemade bombs — each equipped with about 37 pounds of inert C-4 plastic explosives — into separate vehicles parked outside the synagogues. The other three suspects served as lookouts, Mr. Kelly said.

“There was a driver who was a cooperator, and there was the individual who placed the bombs in the vehicle, and then there were three lookouts,” Mr. Kelly said. “As everyone was going back to the car, that is when the signal was given to the emergency service officers to move in.”

An 18-wheel vehicle — known as a “low-boy” — blocked the suspects’ black sport utility vehicle at 237th Street and Riverdale Avenue. The F.B.I. informer also served as the driver of the suspects’ S.U.V., Mr. Kelly said.

Another armored vehicle arrived and officers from the department’s Emergency Service Unit smashed the blackened windows of the S.U.V., removed the men from the vehicle, and handcuffed them on the ground. None offered resistance.

Other police officers, along with members of the Joint Terrorist Task Force, the F.B.I., and the state police, were also on hand, and “moved in and took those individuals away,” Mr. Kelly said. Three of the four men were escorted by federal agents from Federal Plaza in Lower Manhattan around 1 a.m. Thursday. They were handcuffed and did not respond to reporters’ questions as they were loaded into the back of vehicles to be taken to the nearby Metropolitan Correctional Center. There, they emerged one by one.

Mr. Cromitie, who was wearing a dark blue shirt and jeans, gazed at the assembled reporters and photographers but again did not respond to questions. David and Onta Williams also did not answer questions as they quickly walked by, staring at the ground. A federal law enforcement official described the plot as “aspirational” — meaning that the suspects wanted to do something but had no weapons or explosives — and described the operation as a sting with a cooperator within the group.

“It was fully controlled at all times,” a law enforcement official said.

Mr. Kelly told Jewish leaders Wednesday evening that the attackers planned simultaneous attacks. After the men left the bombs in cars in front of the two synagogues, they planned to drive back to Newburgh and retrieve cellphone-detonating devices and then proceed with the attack on the air base — simultaneously shooting down aircraft while remotely setting off the devices in the cars.

Stewart International Airport is used by the New York Air National Guard and United States Air Force, according to the complaint, and it stores aircraft used to transport military supplies and personnel to the military in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The shadowy figure of the F.B.I. informant is, in many ways, a driving force of the plot laid out by prosecutors. The informant, who has been cooperating with the F.B.I. for the past six years, first met with Mr. Cromitie at the Masjid al-Ikhlas, a mosque in Newburgh, in June 2008. At that time, Mr. Cromitie told the informant that he was interested in returning to Afghanistan. Mr. Cromitie spoke about how, if he were to die a martyr, he would go to paradise, the complaint said.

A month later, the informant lied to Mr. Cromitie, telling him that he was a member of Jaish al-Mohammed, a terrorist organization based in Pakistan. Mr. Cromitie said he would be interested in joining up “to do jihad.” The informant, who audio and video taped many of his meetings with the defendants, later told them that the surface-to-air missiles and explosives were provided by the terrorist group.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and elected officials joined Mr. Kelly at the news conference on Thursday morning, which was held as worshipers arrived for morning services.

The mayor praised the Police Department, which worked with the F.B.I. and other agencies on the case, and described the disruption of the terror plot as a frightening but exceptional occurrence. “Most people in New York City want to live together, work together, and I think we’re as safe today as we’ve ever been before,” the mayor said.

Political leaders responded to the news of the arrests with statements expressing relief.

State Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz, a Bronx Democrat who represents Riverdale, and is a member of the congregation at the Riverdale Temple, also praised law enforcement authorities for their efforts.

“I think most people will agree that we’re very angry, but very sad, that this kind of plot would take place in our community,” he said. “There are people out there motivated by religious hatred, hatred against Jews frankly, but the good news is that the N.Y.P.D. and F.B.I. were on top of this from the very beginning.”

Reporting was contributed by Al Baker, Sharon Otterman, David Johnston, Angela Macropoulos, Jennifer Mascia, Colin Moynihan, William K. Rashbaum and Benjamin Weiser.







NY terror suspects to appear in court
By Harvey Morris in New York
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009
Published: May 21 2009 16:20 | Last updated: May 21 2009 16:20
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/bcaa08a8-4617-11de-803f-00144feabdc0.html



Four members of an alleged domestic terrorist cell were to appear in court on Thursday accused of plotting attacks on a New York synagogue and an airport north of the city used by the military.

US authorities said the men, three Americans and a fourth of Haitian descent, wanted to avenge the deaths of Muslims in US military operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

An FBI agent escorts a man into Federal Plaza in New York following the arrest of four men allegedly involved in a plot to detonate a bomb outside a synagogue in the Bronx and to attack military aircraft with Stinger missiles

They were arrested on Wednesday night outside a synagogue in the Riverdale district of the Bronx in a car packed with what they thought was plastic explosive. In fact, it was a fake bomb supplied by a government informer a part of a year-long sting operation.

The accused were named as James Cromitie – also known as Abdul Rahman – the son of an Afghan immigrant who was alleged to have told the informer he wanted to die as a martyr in Afghanistan. Also charged were David Williams (aka Daoud), Onta Williams (aka Hamza) and Laguerre Payen (aka Amin or Almondo).

The last three were described by Peter King, a Republican New York state congressman, as jailhouse converts to Islam.

The four did not appear to be linked to any known organisation, although the unnamed informant who supplied the fake bomb and a fake Stinger missile told them he was involved with the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohamed, which is on the US terrorist list.

James Cromitie was said to have expressed interest in joining the organisation to “do Jihad”.

The alleged plot will add to US concerns about the perceived threat from home-grown Islamic terrorism. Michael Bloomberg, New York mayor, said: “This latest attempt to attack our freedoms shows that the homeland security threats against New York City are sadly all too real.”

The FBI and other agencies have been on the alert since the disappearance of a score of Somali youths from their homes in Minneapolis. One subsequently died last year in a suicide bombing in Somaliland.

Joseph Demarest, New York FBI assistant-director who was among law enforcement officials who announced the arrests, recently spoke at a meeting of the Pakistani-American community in the city to address concerns that Muslims were being unfairly targeted in operations to combat domestic terrorism.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation used video and recording devices to monitor the defendants’ contacts with the government informer, who was recruited while on probation for fraud.

As well as the synagogue bombing, the four were accused of planning to use a Stinger missile to bring down a plane at an airport in their hometown of Newburgh, north of New York, which is used by the National Guard for military flights.

Onta Williams was alleged to have told the informer: “They are killing Muslim brothers and sisters in Muslim countries so, if we killed them here with IEDs [improvised explosive devices] and Stingers, it is equal.”

The four face life imprisonment on charges that include conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction against targets in the US.

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