JFK Almost hit in terriost attack

[Redleader34]

[quote=The New York Daily News]
They aimed to kill thousands

BY JOHN MARZULLI, JAMES GORDON MEEK, ALISON GENDAR AND ROBERT F. MOORE

DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS

Posted Sunday, June 3rd 2007, 11:39 AM

Click on the image to enlarge.
Oil tanks that fuel JFK Airport.

Prime target: Huge oil tanks supplying millions of gallons of fuel to JFK Airport.

See also:

* Residents rattled by JFK plot
*
Inner workings of twisted plan
* Editorial: The terror this time
* Anaylsis: As hatred grows, Al Qaeda wins
*
Michael Daly: His meekness masks murderous mind
*
Plot sends prez hopefuls rushing to mics



Four extremists hatched a plot to blow up Kennedy Airport and swaths of Queens by attacking fuel tanks and an underground petroleum pipeline - in hopes of igniting a catastrophic explosion that would eclipse 9/11, authorities said yesterday.

One of the Muslim men, Russell Defreitas, a U.S. citizen who had worked for a cargo company at the airport, boasted to an informant that "he had a vision that would make the World Trade Center attack seem small," authorities said.

"The devastation that would be caused had this plot succeeded is just unthinkable," said Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Roslynn Mauskopf.

The ringleaders were identified as radicals with ties to Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago. Three suspects, including a former member of the Guyanese parliament, have been arrested. The fourth was still being sought.

Defreitas, 63, was busted at the Lindenwood Diner in Brooklyn late Friday. He allegedly told a federal informant that Kennedy Airport, which handles an average of 1,000 flights a day and 45 million passengers a year, was chosen because of its economic importance - and symbolic connection to the slain President.

"They [Americans] loved John F. Kennedy like he's the man. If you hit that, the whole country will be in mourning. It's like you can kill the man twice," he said, according to authorities.

The bearded defendant, wearing a knee-length, olive-green tunic with matching pants, looked tired and did not enter a plea yesterday during a brief appearance in Brooklyn Federal Court. A patch featuring the continent of Africa and a lion was sewn into one of his sleeves.

Prosecutor Jeffrey Knox called Defreitas the homegrown extremist behind the chilling terror plot whose goal was "to kill as many people as possible."

The group's original plan was to crash an airplane into other passenger jets on the ground at Kennedy "to create a catastrophic explosion," a source said.

When the suspects couldn't recruit enough co-conspirators, the source said, they came up with a new plan: to set off explosions at the airport's fuel farm, a series of storage tanks.

They also were targeting a massive fuel pipeline that runs 40 miles from Linden, N.J., through Staten Island, Brooklyn and Queens, providing fuel to JFK.

They hoped an assault on the so-called Buckeye pipeline - which carries 8 million gallons of jet fuel and refined petroleum into the city every day - would kill thousands by causing explosions throughout residential areas.

But the pipeline owner and experts said yesterday an explosion at one section of the artery would not cause a chain reaction.

Investigators said the cabal - which had ties to Jamaat al Muslimeen, an extremist Muslim group in Trinidad and Tobago - had not yet bought explosives but posed a credible threat. The suspects had taken video of the airport and obtained satellite photos using Google Earth software, authorities said.

The group "was very familiar with the airport and how to access secure areas," a source said.

The alleged plotters were identified as Defreitas, a divorced U.S. citizen originally from Guyana who lives in East New York, Brooklyn; Trinidadian national Kareem Ibrahim; Abdul Kadir, a former member of the parliament and former mayor of a city in Guyana, and Abdel Nur, also from Guyana.

Ibrahim and Kadir - who was photographed in 2005 meeting with Guyana's president - were in custody in Trinidad and Tobago. Authorities believe Nur is hiding in the Caribbean.

Kadir, who left his parliament position last year, has connections in Iran, where his son attended school, a counterterrorism official told the Daily News. He had code-named the plot "The Chicken Farm," authorities said.

"Defreitas provided the know-how about JFK. Kadir provided the contacts and possibility for financing," Mauskopf said. "It was a potentially deadly combination."

But any links to established terror networks were unclear.

"There are a couple of shadowy figures in the background," a source said. "Whether those Al Qaeda connections were real or not, we don't know."

At a meeting last year with an informant, Defreitas confided that "he had a vision that would make the World Trade Center attack seem small," the complaint said.

The suspects were under surveillance for a year before the arrests were made here and overseas.

"We had them on conspiracy long ago," a law enforcement source said, adding that the feds didn't move in more quickly because they wanted to see whether the probe targets had ties to Al Qaeda.

Defreitas, who was ordered held without bail yesterday, told an informant in January that he was motivated to attack Kennedy Airport because while working there years ago for Evergreen International Aviation, he saw missiles being shipped to Israel. He told the informant he believed the missiles would be used to kill Muslims, authorities said.

Defreitas "wanted to do something to get those bastards," apparently referring to Jews and the U.S., the criminal complaint said. He also allegedly said he had been taught to make bombs in Guyana.

Authorities decided to round up the suspects because some of them were expected to travel soon.

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said the NYPD had conducted an in-depth survey of the 40-mile pipeline, and police helicopters and boats were closely patrolling the artery of fuel.

"We have to remain vigilant. ... If we learned anything from this latest plot, it's that they keep coming back to New York," Kelly said, adding that he and Mayor Bloomberg had been kept updated during the probe.

The investigation was conducted by the FBI, NYPD, Port Authority Police and U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Kadir's wife, Isha, told The News in Guyana last night that her husband was arrested Friday as he boarded a flight from Trinidad to Venezuela. He had planned to pick up a visa in Caracas so he could travel to Iran for an Islamic conference, she said.

She admitted her family had been associated with the Jamaat al Muslimeen group in Trinidad about 20 years ago, shortly before its failed 1990 coup attempt.

But the mother of eight, who lives about 70 miles southeast of Guyana's capital, insisted, "At no time in our home do we ever think about bombing or doing anything to hurt the United States of America."[/quote]

My gods, they could have destroyed the airport, and my old house in one fell swoop

[Redleader34]

Could a mod edit the tile/quote tags, and there are maps

at

The map of where the pipline flows

[Lord Zentei]

Apparently, they were charged today.

And an update:

FBI: Informant in JFK plot was drug dealer

POSTED: 12:15 p.m. EDT, June 4, 2007

• NEW: Attorney for two suspects in Trinidad says clients will fight extradition
• The informant visited a radical Muslim group's compound in Trinidad, feds say
• FBI agent: Informants integral to unraveling JFK, Fort Dix plots
• Informant was convicted drug dealer, allegedly asked if he wanted to be a martyr

NEW YORK (AP) -- An informant who helped break up an alleged plot to bomb a fuel pipeline feeding the city's busiest airport was so convincing to the suspects that they actually thanked God he was with them, federal authorities said.

The informant made several overseas trips to discuss the plot against John F. Kennedy International Airport, even visiting a radical Muslim group's compound in Trinidad, officials said. He also joined the plotters on airport surveillance trips -- where authorities were waiting, they said.

The suspects were convinced he was guided by a higher purpose: The ringleader believed the informant "had been sent by Allah to be the one" to pull off the bombing, according to a federal complaint. (Watch how the feds allegedly foiled the plot Video)

The four-person plot, revealed Saturday, demonstrated the growing importance of informants in the government's efforts to combat terrorism, particularly as smaller radical groups become more aggressive.

Accused mastermind Russell Defreitas, 63, is now in custody in New York, where he will have a bail hearing on Wednesday.

But two other suspects, Kareem Ibrahim and Abdul Kadir, a former member of Guyana's Parliament, were in Trinidad and will fight extradition to the United States, their lawyer, Rajid Persad, told a Trinidadian court on Monday.

Officials also have identified Kadir as a former mayor of a Guyanese town.

The two made their initial court appearance there on one count each of conspiracy to commit a terrorist act against the government of the United States. The judge set a bail hearing for June 11 and an extradition hearing on August 2.

Authorities in Trinidad are still seeking a fourth suspect, Abdel Nur.

Tom Corrigan, a former member of the FBI-New York Police Department Joint Terrorism Task Force, said the Kennedy airport case and the recent plot to attack Fort Dix illustrated the need for inside information.

Six men were arrested in a plot to attack soldiers at the New Jersey military base after an FBI informant infiltrated that group. (Full story)

"These have been two significant cases back-to-back where informants were used," Corrigan said. "These terrorists are in our own backyard. They may have to reach out to people they don't necessarily trust, but they need -- for guns, explosives, whatever."

Without informants, Corrigan said, investigators are often left with little more than educated guesswork. "In most cases, you can't get from A to B without an informant," said the ex-NYPD detective.

In the Kennedy airport case, the informant was a twice-convicted drug dealer who found himself in the midst of a terrorist plot conceived as more devastating than the September 11, 2001, attacks.

"Would you like to die as a martyr?" the informant was asked, according to the indictment.

He unhesitatingly replied yes and soon was making surveillance trips around the airport -- the "chicken farm," as the planners dubbed their target.

Authorities said the JFK scheme was an example of homegrown terrorism. Defreitas immigrated to the U.S. more than 30 years ago, but he told the federal informant that his feelings of disgust toward his adopted homeland had lingered for years. (Watch a rundown on the four suspects Video)

Defreitas, in custody Sunday pending a bail hearing, was arrested Friday night outside Brooklyn's Lindenwood Diner -- a spot once bugged by federal officials tracking former Gambino family boss John A. "Junior" Gotti.

The four Muslim men accused in the JFK plot didn't turn to Pakistan, Iran or Afghanistan for support after targeting the airport, home to an average of 1,000 daily flights and 45 million passengers annually.

Instead, according to a federal complaint, the informant and defendants Ibrahim and Defreitas visited a compound belonging to Jamaat al Muslimeen, a radical Islamic group known for launching a bloody 1990 coup attempt in Trinidad that involved taking the prime minister and his Cabinet hostage. It left 24 people dead.

Though Jamaat al Muslimeen did have contact with the men accused in the Kennedy airport plot, it is not accused of offering them any support. The group, whose followers are largely black converts to Sunni Islam, has faded as a political force in Trinidad as its leader, Yasin Abu Bakr, fends off criminal charges of inciting violence.

The rebels in the 1990 raid on Parliament surrendered and were pardoned.

When Defreitas discussed his radical "brothers" with the informant, he made it clear they were not Arabs, but from Trinidad and Guyana. (Watch whether the plot was feasible Video)

The complaint made clear the informant had deeply infiltrated the group. Defreitas, a retired JFK airport cargo worker, made four reconnaissance missions to the airport, authorities said. They captured each one on audio and video equipment.

[SirNitram]

Well, it was Already posted.

Of course, the other link says all those things we're supposed to only hear a week or two after: That it never passed the planning stage, that no terminal or plane was targetted, so on.

I expect as time rolls on it will be just like the others: Some kind kung-fu bible study group, or FPS idiots who think they can assault a fort, cause dozens of casualties, and not get hit themselves, and so on.

[weemadando]

Apparently these guys were such hardcore Islamic extremists that the fourth member of the cell surrendered himself at a police station in Trinidad.