New Jersey Terrorist Plot

[Midnight Mike]

6 charged with plot on Army base in N.J. By GEOFF MULVIHILL, Associated 08-May-2007

Six men from the former Yugoslavia were arrested on charges they plotted to attack the Fort Dix Army base and "kill as many soldiers as possible," federal authorities said Tuesday.

The suspects were described as "Islamic radicals," said U.S. Attorney's Office spokesman Greg Reinert.

They were scheduled to appear in U.S. District Court in Camden later Tuesday to face charges of conspiracy to kill U.S. servicemen, said Michael Drewniak, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in New Jersey. Five of them lived in Cherry Hill, he said.

"They were planning an attack on Fort Dix in which they would kill as many soldiers as possible," Drewniak said.

A law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity because documents in the case remain sealed, said the attack was stopped in the planning stages.

Authorities believe the men trained in the Poconos for the attack and also conducted surveillance at other area military institutions, including Fort Monmouth, the official said. The official said that the men had lived in the United States for some time.

The six were arrested trying to buy automatic weapons in a sale set-up by law enforcement authorities, the official said.

State Police Capt. Al Della Fave said Tuesday that the investigation had been in the works for about a year. The arrests were first reported by WNBC-TV in New York.

Jerri Williams, spokeswoman for the FBI in Philadelphia, said U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie and J.P. Weis, special agent in charge of the FBI in Philadelphia, would release further information later Thursday.

Five of suspects lived in Cherry Hill, about 10 miles east of Philadelphia and 20 miles southwest of Fort Dix, Drewniak said.

Fort Dix is used to train soldiers, particularly reservists. In 1999, it sheltered more than 4,000 ethnic Albanian refugees during the NATO bombing campaign against Yugoslavia.

After that war, refugees were allowed to return to the U.N.-run province of Kosovo in Serbia or to seek permanent residency in the United States. The U.N. Security Council is considering whether to approve a plan to grant Kosovo independence from Serbia under the supervision of the European Union and the United States.

[Nycfly75]

FORT DIX, N.J. - May 8, 2007 - Six ethnic Albanians have been arrested in a plot to storm the U.S. Army's Fort Dix installation in Burlington County and attack soldiers. Five of the suspects were arrested in Cherry Hill.
They will be arraigned later today in federal court. Officials say it will happen in Camden.

ABC News is reporting that Fort Dix was selected because one of the suspects, a delivery driver for a local pizza joint, had unfettered access to the base.

Investigators say the suspects planned to use automatic weapons to storm the base and kill solders. The men were lured into a secret meeting to purchase AK-47s from an arms dealer, who was secretly cooperating with the FBI.

Officials say the suspects worked on a number of targets, including the Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, Fort Monmouth in Eatontown, and several Coast Guard stations.

Federal agents made the arrests when the suspects zeroed in on Fort Dix.

Officials say some of the suspects were caught on tape.

Fort Dix is made up of 31,065 acres of land, with training areas bordered by the Lebanon State Forest, Lakehurst Naval Air Engineering Center and selected Wildlife Management Areas.

(Copyright 2007 by 6abc and Action News. All rights reserved.)

[Midnight Mike]

The suspects were described as "Islamic radicals," said U.S. Attorney's Office spokesman Greg Reinert.

Is there a global war on terror?

http://youtube.com/watch?v=nIvzS9y4C3k

If you vote Democrat, choose your candiate wisely.....

[T-Bird76]

Even if this went to the execution stage I can't see it succeeding, I've been to military bases and NO one has unfettered access. They search your car, under your car, you can't simply drive in.

[USAF Pilot 07]

Even if this went to the execution stage I can't see it succeeding, I've been to military bases and NO one has unfettered access. They search your car, under your car, you can't simply drive in.

You'd actually be surprised at how "lax" security is at many of our bases. A lot of the ECPs or guard post positions have been contracted out to local civilians security guard agencies. While many of them do an outstanding job, from what I've seen at the ECPs here, at Ft. Carson (one of the largest Army bases in the US), Peterson AFB, and the other bases I've been to while TDY or on break, is a different mindset between them and actual military members, when it comes down to safety and security.

If someone really wanted to sneak weapons on to just about any base, if they looked and acted a certain way, it wouldn't be too tough. Of course, they couldn't just drive on with a cache of weapons on the passenger seat or in the trunk, but with just some ingenuity, I think it wouldn't be a problem.

Realistically, if someone could successfully scrape off DoD decals from a real military member's car, and put them on their respective car, and obtain a fake military ID, they most likely wouldn't even be searched or questioned at the gate. I had to have my windshield replaced the other week, and the guy working there managed to peel off my DoD stickers from the old windshield and apply them to the new one, without any tears or rips or anything.

While someone with no military association, or no harmful intent wishing to come on base may be searched thoroughly (or even denied entry at certain bases), anyone with just a little ingenuity, and some basic military knowledge, knowledge of procedures at their local military installation, and tangible resources to gain entry to a base (fake or not) probably wouldn't have that hard of a time doing so.

[T-Bird76]

Well its glad to hear our military bases are so air tight...makes you even more about our ports of entry.

[USAF Pilot 07]

Well its glad to hear our military bases are so air tight...makes you even more about our ports of entry.

Security at our ports is probably laughably lax. The fact is that we just don't have the resources, or really the will as a society (i.e. we want things fast and cheap) to provide air tight security at these places...

As far as military bases go, there's just no way to make security air-tight without inconveniencing the thousands of people living and working on the base. Some days I drive on and off base more than 5 or 6 times. If my car had to be searched thoroughly every single time I drove on base, firstly it would be very inconvenient (which granted is still a small price to pay for safety), and secondly it would cause massive backups and it would take hours to get on base. This would lead to massive inefficiencies at the organizations on base.

To add to that, so much stuff on-base has been contracted out to non-military personnel, that so many people who've never been in the military or who may know little about it, are coming on base; everybody from maintenance employees, working on multi-million dollar aircraft, to pizza delivery men....

[Matt Molnar]

To add to that, so much stuff on-base has been contracted out to non-military personnel, that so many people who've never been in the military or who may know little about it, are coming on base; everybody from maintenance employees, working on multi-million dollar aircraft, to pizza delivery men....

Sure enough...

ABC:
The Pizza Connection; Easy Access to Fort Dix

The six men charged with planning an attack to kill several hundred U.S. soldiers at Fort Dix, N.J., thought they would have easy access to the base by pretending to deliver pizzas.

In a criminal complaint filed this morning, an FBI agent writes that "SERDAR TATAR's father owned a restaurant near Fort Dix and made deliveries onto the base."

[PhilDernerJr]

Clark, I think you shared a little too much about base security. Plan on publishing a manual for bad guys, too? :-p

[USAF Pilot 07]

Clark, I think you shared a little too much about base security. Plan on publishing a manual for bad guys, too? :-p

Haha, yea actually it's being reviewed by my editor as we speak...

But everything I said is probably known by just about anyone who works or lives on a military installation.

[moose135]

Now you've done it Clark, you let the terrorists win :shock:

Funny thing about pizza delivery on base. At Grissom, it was a favorite, especially out to the Alert Facility. A Dominos Pizza opened in a nearby town, and made a killing for a few months. Then they said that because all traffic in and out would be stopped during an exercise or other event on base, they could deliver, but would not honor the "30 minutes or it's free" guarantee. About a month later, they stopped delivery completely, because their franchise agreement said they couldn't deliver someplace without the guarantee. Since everything, including base housing, was inside the gates, they lost a huge amount of business. I think they went out of business later that year, as another pizza place without a delivery time guarantee grabbed up all that base business.

[NcSchu]

If you vote Democrat, choose your candiate wisely.....

It's impossible to vote "Democrat", I can however vote "Democratic".

[PhilDernerJr]

Well its glad to hear our military bases are so air tight...makes you even more about our ports of entry.

I think they would have shot their way through.

[moose135]

From Newsday.com:

Inspired and educated over the Internet, such self-generating terror cells are now popping up all over the world, according to terrorism experts. "It's easy to do this any place, and it's worrisome," said Vincent Cannistraro, former chief of the CIA's counterterrorism center.

But experts like Cannistraro also cautioned that the threat from such groups shouldn't be exaggerated. The Fort Dix ring, he said, appeared to be highly inept -- handing over training videos to a video-store clerk, and then infiltrated by not one but two informants within a couple of months.

"It's pretty clear this is not a trained clandestine cell," he said. " ... These guys look like they probably couldn't rob a bank."

So these guys weren't terrorists so much as they were morons!

[Mateo]

Heh. I used to be involved in dispatching tow trucks onto military bases (Fort Dix was one of them, as a matter of fact), and it was a huge pain in the arse - you had to call in the driver's info, and the driver had to have contact information for the person he was going to, as well as the exact location (not always exactly available). Dix/McG were OK, Dover was pretty easy, if I remember correctly, and Quantico was a nightmare - especially because the base is so big, and covers two counties (which meant 2 different service providers).