Details Emerge In New Jersey Terror Arrests

Carlos Almonte and Mohamed Alessa are each facing one terror-related count: one count of conspiracy to kill, maim and murder persons outside of the United States. The charges carry a life sentence if convicted.

The duo had been under surveillance since authorities were tipped off in 2006. Both men were put on the no-fly list but were allowed to purchase tickets to Egypt and to make their way through security at JFK so as to not arouse suspicion (and to permit formative acts in furtherance of their conspiracy).

Both Alessa and Almonte were on federal no-fly lists. Buying airline tickets, therefore, would have triggered red flags that could have blown the investigation. So authorities lifted the restriction, allowing them to book reservations on their separate flights, and making them think everything was a go for their trips. Then Saturday night, they cleared security, checked their bags and walked separately down jet ways as authorities waited to pounce.

Unlike many other terror-related suspects whose families rally around the suspect, the father of one of the accused NJ jihadis isn't supporting his son.

The father of one of the two accused Jersey jihadists says he is so disgusted with his son that he didn't attend his court appearance Monday.

I'm not supporting anybody that does something wrong," Pedro Almonte said of his 24-year-old son, Carlos, in an interview with the Daily News.

The Dominican immigrant from Elmwood Park, N.J., said he doesn't know what to make of Carlos, who converted to militant Islam and changed his name to Omar after high school when he fell in with Mohamed Alessa, 20.

"I don't want to talk to anybody - even him," the father said.

Almonte and Alessa were charged in federal court in Newark, and Almonte smirked his way through his appearance. He had apparently resisted arrest at JFK airport, and sported a couple of bruises. Both men were wearing "pseudo-soldier outfits of cargo pants and military-style khaki shirts with shoulder tabs." (their lawyers let them do that? that's just bad visuals if you're representing these two in court).

Both men are also linked with Anwar al-Awlaki, and both men downloaded Awlaki's jihadi sermons.
The duo prepared for jihad and the trip to Somalia.

“They only fear you when you have a gun and when you — when you start killing them, and when you — when you take their head, and you go like this, and you behead it on camera.” He added: “We’ll start doing killing here, if I can’t do it over there.” Mr. Alessa used the Arabic words for gun and killing, according to the complaint. The next day, said the complaint, he told the officer: “I leave this time, God willing, I never come back. I’ll never see this crap hole. Only way I would come back here is if I was in the land of jihad and the leader ordered me to come back here and do something here. Ah, I love that.”

Both men will be held without bail.