Updates: JFK Terror Plot Revealed

Safety shutoff valves are likely to have prevented the kind of deadly results that the four plotters intended.

The Port Authority has stepped up security as well.

So what pushed the accused to commence a plot to attack JFK airport? Well, Defreitas said that he was extremely upset that he saw missiles and weapons being shipped to Israel, which could be used against other Muslims (page 15 of the complaint).

The target was chosen because President Kennedy holds a special place in the hearts of Americans, and destroying such a symbol would be extremely harmful to the local, state, and national economy.

Defreitas engaged in surveillance of the airport and videotaped various areas around the airport (page 19), while the law enforcement source drove the vehicle.

And Defreitas' co-conspirator Kadir sought to go to Iran.

Isha Kadir, the Guyanese suspect’s wife, said her husband flew from Guyana to Trinidad on Thursday. She said he was arrested Friday as he was boarding a flight from Trinidad to Venezuela, where he planned to pick up a travel visa to attend an Islamic religious conference in Iran.

It is interesting how law enforcement got alerted to this plot and how they began surveillance of the plotters.

The thing to keep in mind is that these plotters were stopped before their plans could be brought to fruition. The idea is to stop them before they carry out the attacks.

The airport is fed jet fuel, gasoline and heating oil through a capillary system of pipes that run from New Jersey through Staten Island, Brooklyn and Queens. Oil industry experts said safety shut-off valves would almost assuredly have prevented an exploding airport fuel tank from igniting all or even part of the network.

But officials said the four men determined to carry out their attack, having conducted “precise and extensive” surveillance of the airport using photographs, video, the recollections of Mr. Defreitas and satellite images downloaded from Google Earth.

They said the men had also traveled repeatedly to Guyana and Trinidad in recent months, seeking the blessing and financial backing of an extremist Muslim group based in Trinidad and Tobago called Jamaat al-Muslimeen, which was behind a bloody coup attempt in Trinidad in 1990.

“The enforcement action we are announcing today was taken to prevent a terrorist plot from maturing into a terrorist act,” Mr. Mershon said during a news conference yesterday at F.B.I. headquarters in Manhattan. The motive behind the planned attack, he said, “was a pattern of hatred toward the United States and the West in general.”

There is also more information about the four men named in the complaint:

Abdul Kadir, 55, a former mayor of a town in Guyana and a onetime member of Parliament in that South American country, was arrested in Trinidad on Friday. He helped Mr. Defreitas complete the plan and secure financing, according to the criminal complaint, which was unsealed yesterday.

Mr. Kadir was detained after boarding a flight on Aeropostal, a Venezuelan airline, which was to go to Caracas, an official briefed on the arrest said yesterday. The flight between Port of Spain and Caracas, which usually takes less than an hour, had taken off but the crew was told to return to Trinidad, the official said.

The third suspect, Kareem Ibrahim, 61, was arrested in Trinidad. The extradition of both Mr. Kadir and Mr. Ibrahim was being sought.

The fourth suspect, Abdel Nur, 57, remained a fugitive, the officials said, and was believed to be in Trinidad.

If convicted, all four suspects could face life in prison.

It's curious that when law enforcement does manage to disrupt these attacks, the far left fringe accuses law enforcement of trumping up such plots and those who report and opine on the disruptions are gullible.

For the left, they complain when the US engages in military action to eliminate terrorists overseas, but also complain about law enforcement actions that disrupt terrorist attacks. Very curious.

UPDATE:
Rudy Giuliani has come out and used the thwarted JFK plot as a reason to vote for him and the GOP in the 2008 election:

Giuliani told a crowd of 700 gathered at a Broward County Republican fundraiser that Democrats ignore the Islamic terrorist threat and that he is the Republican candidate best capable of handling it.

"I've had the most experience dealing with terrorism," Giuliani said, citing his experience as a federal prosecutor and later as mayor of New York City, where he served during the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

"There are some very good people on the Republican side that understand terrorism, I do not find too many on the Democratic side that do, but I think of the people that do, I understand it the best and can keep the country focused on being on offense," Giuliani said.

Early in his nearly 30-minute speech, Giuliani mentioned the arrests of men who authorities say were part of a Muslim terrorist cell. He later held a press conference to make a statement about the alleged plot.

"Today's arrests remind us that we're at war," Giuliani said. "It should remind us that the terrorists are at war with us, both overseas and here in the United States."

UPDATE:
Brendan Loy examines whether the terrorists' plot to blow up the pipelines would have been feasible. He concludes that they wouldn't.

I still think the greater risk would have come from an attack directly on the tank farms at the airport, where if explosives were placed at various points within the tank farm, a massive conflagration could have devastated the equipment and shuttered the airport for a lengthy period of time.

UPDATE:
Gothamist writes the following:

Officials are claiming that the successful execution of the plot would have resulted in the deaths of thousands of New Yorkers. The Daily News, however, writes that the owner of the pipeline and various security experts were doubtful that the plan could have been pulled off. While not willing to discuss the details, they said that there were definite precautions installed in the pipeline that would restrict the chain reaction these terrorists were plotting. And while some might be cyncical regarding the seriousness of the arrests, if the FBI said we caught some guys who were planning on simultaneously hijacking four commercial jets and then flying them into the Pentagon and the Twin Towers, causing them to fall, our first reaction would be "Yeah right, like that could ever happen."

Technology is not foolproof and a determined group of terrorist could have caused serious damage. Whether they could have pulled off an attack of the magnitude they envisioned is debatable. The importance of stopping them is not.

UPDATE:
The NY Post notes that pipeline security is 'a joke.'

Three years ago, Fossella highlighted major security shortfalls surrounding a mostly submerged portion of the pipeline in Brooklyn, at the 65th Street rail yard on Fourth Avenue in Bay Ridge.

Fossella showed that the security fence was consistently left open and that parts of the gate were sometimes missing. Security was so bad that homeless people have been seen roaming the yards.

"It makes me feel unsafe for me and my family that we are living over this," said Matthew Cartelli, one of 2,000 people who live across the street from the rail yard in the Bay Ridge Towers apartment complex.

Fossella said there has been immense confusion over whose bears responsibility for security at the rail yards falls to since it is owned by the Long Island Rail Road and leased to New York and Atlantic Railway.

Message left at the agencies were not returned yesterday afternoon.

Buckeye officials said authorities kept the company informed of the threat from the beginning and that an explosion at a fuel tank or portion of the conduit would not ignite the entire pipeline.

"There's been a lot of overblown statements concerning the consequences of 'blowing up a pipeline,' " said company Vice President Stephen Muther. "Pipelines can usually be repaired and put back into operation within a matter of days."

He added there are foot and aerial patrols guarding the pipeline and that all security measures are approved by federal authorities.

"We feel we have adequate security provisions in place to protect the pipelines," Muther said. However, there have been mishaps.

The Daily News wonders just how deadly such an attack could have been.

Michael Ledeen, meanwhile, also notes the possible links to Venezuela and Iran. Venezuela's Chavez and Iran's Ahmadinejad have been quite cozy recently and their anti-US rhetoric has been steadily increasing for years. Chavez has even announced a form of mutual support for Iran should Iran be attacked - they would withhold oil from the market if Iran is attacked.