FOUR SELF-STYLED jihadists from New York planned to shock America by bombing two synagogues and bringing down a military plane in an attack conceived as revenge for the deaths of Muslims in Afghanistan and Pakistan, police said yesterday.
The four men intended to carry out the attacks on Wednesday evening, planting what they thought were car bombs outside two Bronx synagogues and planning to detonate the devices at the same time as they shot down a plane with an anti-aircraft missile.
But the group was arrested amid an extraordinary display of police firepower including the use of an 18-wheel armoured truck used to block the suspects’ vehicle.
New York’s police chief and the city’s mayor warned yesterday that the arrests underlined the continuing security threats against the city since the 9/11 attacks against the US. But the emerging details of the plot also illuminated the ability of federal authorities to infiltrate and track nascent terrorist activities.
According to the federal case against the men, the plot began to take shape in June last year. James Cromitie, a criminal with numerous convictions and who has been identified as the ringleader, was alleged to have asked about buying explosives via a mosque in Newburgh, a town about 60 miles north of New York City where he lived.
He said he was upset about the war in Afghanistan, as his father was an Afghan immigrant to the US. Cromitie said he wanted to do “something to America”, lamenting that “the best target was already hit” in an apparent reference to the World Trade Centre.
Even at that early stage the police were aware of his intentions. An informant posing as a member of an extreme Pakistani group was in contact with Cromitie at the mosque and remained closely associated with him, using hidden audio and video equipment to record conversations over the following 11 months.
In October, the charges find, Cromitie began discussions with his conspirators, whom he had met in prison. Two of the three are US citizens and the third Haitian; they are all converts to Islam.
The informant tracked the meetings of the four men, and arranged, with FBI help, to supply them with 17kg of C-4 plastic explosives and a Stinger anti-aircraft missile. The men were unaware that all the weaponry, including the explosives formed into a bomb-like object by FBI agents, was dud and harmless.
Last month, the charges allege, the men began staking out the synagogues – the Riverdale Temple and the Riverdale Jewish Centre. They also surveyed military aircraft at Stewart air national guard base in Newburgh. The plotters allegedly intended to create a "fireball that would make the country gasp". There was no evidence they were linked to a wider network of jihadists. "The group was relatively unsophisticated . . . and not connected to any outside group," said Charles Schumer, one of New York state's two senators.– ( Guardianservice)