Lakehurst Naval Air Engineering Base Briefly Locked Down After Incidents

What the incident actually was hasn't been addressed, but several reports seem to indicate that shots were fired, but later reports deny or downplay the incident. Several simultaneous incidents occurred at Lakehurst this morning that required the lockdown of the base, which merged with the nearby McGuire AFB/Fort Dix military complex.

One report indicates that a FedEx employee was taken into custody trying to enter the base with a handgun at the commercial delivery entrance, while someone was taken into custody at another gate.

Two separate incidents took place, CBS 2 learned. Sources said a FedEx driver was taken into custody at a commercial delivery gate after security found a 9 mm firearm in the truck. No shots were fired.

A second incident allegedly occurred at a non-commercial gate, though there's no word as to what happened at that gate.

No one was allowed to leave or enter the base during the lockdown. The Dix and McGuire portions of the base were not affected.

The base said the 87th Security Forces Squadron responded to "simultaneous incidents" around 9:30 a.m. In a statement, the base said no personnel were in danger. The statement did not say what the incidents were.

The base is a tri-service military installation, combining Fort Dix, the McGuire Air Force Base, and the NAVAIR base, formerly known as the Naval Air Engineering Station Lakehurst.

Debt of Gratitude

John Doe, the clerk at the Circuit City store who alerted authorities to the actions of the Fort Dix Six, is a John Doe no more.

His name is Brian Morganstern.

Thank you Brian.

Your actions may have saved countless lives by speaking up and contacting law enforcement who confirmed that the group who wanted to make copies of that video were up to no good and intent upon causing mayhem at Fort Dix and other military installations and gatherings in the region.

Fort Dix Six Update: Cops and Entry

One of the men accused of plotting to attack soldiers at Fort Dix had recently applied to be a police officer in two big cities — a move some authorities believe may have been an effort to infiltrate law enforcement agencies.

Serdar Tatar, 23, applied for a job in Philadelphia last month, police spokesman Sgt. D.F. Pace said Wednesday.

"Based on what we know now, I don't think his intentions were good," Pace said.

Tatar also applied for a job in the Oakland, Calif., Police Department, according to a law enforcement official speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information.

Roland Holmgren, an Oakland police spokesman, said he could not immediately confirm whether Tatar had applied there.

Tatar's lawyer, Richard Sparaco, would not comment on the job applications Wednesday, and neither would U.S. Attorney Chris Christie.

Philadelphia police rejected Tatar, a Turkish citizen and legal U.S. resident, because he was not a U.S. citizen and had not lived in the city long enough to be eligible, Pace said. Tatar had lived there for about eight months when he applied, less than the city's one-year requirement.

Very curious.

Meanwhile, WABC-NYC notes that they were able to get on the base at Fort Dix without trouble.

When news broke earlier this month about an alleged terrorist plot against Fort Dix, the New Jersey base called it a real wake-up call. Yet days later we went to the base to check security and found serious flaws.
Exactly one week after the FBI foiled an alleged terror plot at Fort Dix, we approached one of the main gates at the Army base expecting tightened security.

Eyewitness News Photographer: "How are you?"
Guard: "Where are you guys heading?"
Photographer: "Soccer."
Guard: "All the way from New York, go ahead."

After saying we were there for an athletic event and only one us having to show a driver's license, we were in, free to drive anywhere within the sprawling base -- the same base that the FBI claims six men wanted to use AK-47's and rocket propelled grenades "to kill American soldiers."

We took our own tour, first stopping by base lodging, a hotel for visiting military personnel. We then followed signs to the command center which is headquarters for the entire base, all along the way passing groups of soldiers, some getting their pictures taken, others conducting drills.

That's quite troubling and disconcerting that base security has not been increased, including checks on those entering the base. And base security is even more lax on days when the base opens for special events.

Are Terrorists Able To Legally Buy Firearms in US?

That's exactly what New Jersey Senator Frank Lautenberg is claiming:

While the suspects in the Fort Dix case had purchased guns on the black market, Lautenberg noted: "Known and suspected terrorists don't have to use the black market. They can go into a gun store and buy a gun."

Lautenberg said background checks conducted by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives do not currently include a check of the FBI's terrorism watch list -- an omission he called "preposterous." Lautenberg is sponsoring a bill to require the checking of that list for the names of would-be gun purchasers.

"Common sense tells us that we should not let known or suspected terrorists buy a gun," Lautenberg said.

He was joined at the news conference outside Fort Dix by Rep. Jim Saxton (R-3rd Dist.), whose district includes the Army base. Saxton plans to introduce legislation to require background checks and ID cards for vendors -- including pizza delivery drivers -- who do business on U.S. military bases.

Common sense would suggest that they should never be allowed to get firearms, but who says that laws are enacted that make sense.

Background checks and ID cards for vendors entering US bases may improve security only marginally. Until the store clerk at Circuit City came across the DVD, the Fort Dix Six weren't even on the law enforcement radar, so these changes would not have made a difference. If a cell is operating inside the US and no one is aware of its existence, such individuals could still enter the bases even with the requirement for background checks since no flags would have been raised.

Meanwhile, the NICS website provides a list of classes of individuals prohibited from obtaining firearms as a result of the background check:

1) Persons who are aliens and are illegally or unlawfully in the United States
2) Persons who have renounced their U.S. Citizenship
3) Persons who have been adjudicated as a mental defective or have been committed to a mental institution
4) Persons who have been discharged from the armed forces under dishonorable discharge conditions
5) Persons who are unlawful users of or addicted to any controlled substance

At least three of the members of the Fort Dix Six would have been prohibited under provision one since the Duka brothers were illegal aliens and not in the United States legally. Other members who were in the US as legal residents could have obtained the weapons, and as noted above, since they were not on any terrorist watchlist, they could have obtained the weapons had an alert Circuit City employee not found the disturbing images on a video and alerted the authorities.

However, once the authorities were alerted to the existence of this group, there should be a method in place to prohibit them from obtaining firearms legally.

This terror cell was broken because of a eagle-eyed electronics store clerk, and for that we should be thankful. Eliminating loopholes sounds like a good idea, but it will not solve the problem of identifying those that belong on terror watch lists in the first place.

Looking Within

While the mosque leaders and parishioners may wonder what the Fort Dix six were busy doing at their mosques and whether there are others in their midst that might give their congregations a bad name, the New York Times can't quite figure out the connection between the six and Islam.

The Philadelphia mosque — along with the South Jersey Islamic Center in nearby Palmyra, N.J., where the Duka brothers and another suspect, Serdar Tatar, prayed on Fridays — has become associated with words like “terrorist” and “jihad” in news reports and on the streets in the last few days. For a house of worship long proud of its mainstream reputation and strong ties to the city, whispers of a sleeper cell within its walls have been troubling.

“There’s been a lot of frustration,” said Marwan Kreidie, who is prominent among the city’s Muslims and was recently asked to serve as a spokesman for the mosque. “This is a place with great relationships to the community, including a strong working relationship with law enforcement in all its forms.”

It is unclear what role, if any, religion played in the attack Mr. Shnewer and the five other men are charged with planning. (The sixth suspect, Agron Abdullahu, had no apparent connection with Al-Aqsa or the South Jersey Islamic Center.) The authorities have described the suspects as Islamic extremists, but the lengthy criminal complaint summarizing the F.B.I.’s 15-month undercover investigation of the group does not mention where — or how often — they prayed. Certainly there is no evidence that they picked up radical ideas at either mosque.

No, there's no mention of the mosques or where they prayed in the complaint, but the complaint is replete with examples of how the six were intent upon committing jihad. Or maybe look at the first page of the affidavit by the FBI That's killing in the name of Islam. There are indications that they came to view jihad as their calling through online interactions with various websites that are jihad incubators.

The jihadis do not need to be involved in an organized mosque to engage in jihad. While some jihadis do indeed get their marching orders from extremist imams, such as Sheikh Adbel Rahman who pushed for the 1993 WTC bombing and later landmarks plots, other jihadis do not necessarily have links to mosques or religious leaders.

It is quite possible that the Fort Dix six may not have gotten their ideological marching orders from the mosques, but from online. However, the NYT curiously omits the fact that at least some of the six members prayed at a Staten Island mosque and it is possible they may have prayed at other congregations.

UPDATE:
Eugene Volokh wonders what is going on with the NYT reporting of today's story about the Fort Dix six and the crossroads of the case and religion. He points to the original NYT reporting when the arrests were made public and noted the religious overtones of the affidavit and complaint. How they can now question whether religion played any role in the case screams of revisionism, ignorance, or correcting the original story unless they're purposefully ignoring the initial stories or are whitewashing the religious overtones of the case. If you read this story on its own and weren't familiar with the back story, you'd be scratching your head about the possibility that these six were engaged in jihad. Perhaps that is the point.

Others making the same point: Newsbusters, Discerning Texan, Hot Air, and Ace. Ace also notes that the NYT reporters don't seem to be too familiar with the NYT archives. That's a recurring theme when it comes to reporting stories that don't stick to the NYT party line.

Finding Jihad Online

As the investigation continues into the Fort Dix six and how they became enmeshed in jihad, there is a focus on websites that provide videos, how-to guides, and instruction manuals on how to go on jihad.

A wealth of online materials, both inspirational and instructional, awaits the would-be jihadist. No more risky trips to distant mountain training camps. No more clandestine meetings in mosques. No more visits to dusty science libraries. "Radicalization" now begins at home, with a few keystrokes.

From Osama stemwinders and gruesome beheadings, to lurid promises about the sensual rewards of martyrdom and helpful hints on self-detonation, the path to extremism is laid out in easy, byte-sized pieces for anyone with broadband and a grudge.

But are these digital provocations really enough to turn a mere malcontent into a ruthless killer?

"Because of the constant and overwhelming propaganda the jihadists produce, any individual, even with no prior association to jihadist ideology, can quickly feel like he or she is part of the global jihadist community," said Rita Katz of the SITE Institute, a counter-terrorism group based in Washington, D.C.

And as FBI Director Robert Mueller III lamented last year: "The radicalization process has become more rapid, more widespread and anonymous in this Internet age, making detection that much more difficult."

One doesn't have to be affiliated with al Qaeda to access these sites, but someone who is already predisposed to the violent ideology may find inspiration and assistance in realizing jihad.

Terrorism experts now regularly look for computer evidence that links back to jihad websites, and it is rare that they do not find such links. However, there are only a handful of sites that provide what amounts to marching orders while others are the primary mouthpieces for al Qaeda or other Islamic terrorist groups, with the rest linking back to these origination sites.

Testifying before Congress in February, Katz, of the SITE Institute, said jihadist sites are growing bolder and should be tracked more closely.

Although the FBI's Mueller counts as many as 6,000 extremist Web sites, only a handful set the agenda, according to Katz. Since January 2006, the primary clearinghouse for jihadist communiqués has been a virtual outpost called the Al-Fajr Center. Among its offerings is a manual, "Technical Mujahid," explaining how to cover one's tracks in cyberspace.

Like a terror communications corporation, Al-Fajr Center has many divisions: "Brigades" are devoted to hacking, intelligence, propaganda, publications, multimedia and cybersecurity.

Other influential online groups are the Ansar e-Group, the Jihadi Brigades and the Global Islamic Media Front, also known as GIMF.

Besides providing tips for waging jihad, GIMF posts videos of "Americans and Western crimes against Muslims" and the nightly news show "Voice of the Caliphate," complete with masked anchors against a backdrop of assault weapons. A video game, "Night of Bush Capturing," is a first-person shoot-'em-up designed for "terrorist children."

Investigators are looking at what happened in the background of the six to spur them into jihad. This change took place over time, from when they were in high school until well before the plot came to the attention of investigators.

One law enforcement official said that transformation had already been completed when the FBI was alerted to the group 15 months ago.

"Something happened from the time these guys were in high school until now," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

"How they congealed, how they formed this tight-knit group is unknown," the official said. "By the time we got to them, they were already radicalized."

It appears that the Duka brothers began to change their views towards Western culture and began down a path of radical Islam about seven years ago.

As usual, the media can't quite figure out whether this is an overhyped story or one that needs to be underplayed. When terror plots are busted before they come to fruition, it's always a good thing, except the only proof of a threat comes based on what the law enforcement agencies say - and given the media's disdain for the Bush Administration and the war on terror in general, they lean towards claiming that the threats were hyped and not significant.

Unfortunately, if and when such attacks do occur, the Administration will be blamed for failing to connect the dots and stopping the attacks. It's a no win situation for law enforcement and whatever administration is in office at the time.

So, what we're left is trying to figure out what made these six plotters engage in jihad.

Eljvir Duka, an ethnic Albanian, felt the reason to plot an attack on Fort Dix was clear.

"When someone attacks your religion, your way of life, then you go jihad (holy war)," Duka, 23, was quoted as saying in a federal criminal complaint released after his arrest Monday night.

It's an attitude Americans hear from radical elements in the Islamic world. But it's hardly a typical sentiment to come from the mouth of an Albanian.

Of course, Duka conveniently forgets that the Albanian Muslim community was saved from ethnic cleansing by the US led NATO operation in the former Yugoslavia. The US airlifted refugees to the Fort Dix base. They were welcomed with open arms, and yet this group decided that America was the enemy. It's no wonder that so many within the Albanian community are confused about the whole situation.

UPDATE:
Jammie Wearing Fool links to additional information about the initial encounter at the Circuit City where a store employee saw the contents of the home movie that the Dix Six wanted have duplicated. They saw some weird stuff indeed.

Meanwhile, the article notes that a total of 10 were in the parking lot. Of the 10, six are being held without bail. The remaining four are still under surveillance, but have not been arrested as yet for lack of sufficient evidence.

Extremism Has No Place in Islam

So says the head of the mosque where the Fort Dix six often prayed. We need to hear more Muslim leaders along these lines than from the CAIR types that will deny that there's a problem at all, or otherwise lay blame for the extremists in their community on the US or American foreign policy:

The suspects in an alleged plot to attack Fort Dix have been described by federal authorities as "radical Islamists," but the leader of the mosque where four of the men worshipped said yesterday Islam has no room for violent extremists.

During his Friday prayer service sermon, which he entitled "Islam: The Middle and Moderate Path," Islamic Center of South Jersey trustee Ismail Badat told about 150 worshippers that their religion "denounces terrorism."

"Islam teaches gentleness and softness in everything," Badat said from the lectern next to a large white-and-blue tile mosaic and between two minarets. "There are some Muslims who do not know Islam."

With reporters in the back of the room and police cars outside in case of reprisal, Badat acknowledged brothers Dritan, Shain and Eljvir Duka as well as Serdar Tatar worshipped at the center but said their alleged actions do not represent the mosque or its worshippers.

"We are all American -- Muslims are Americans," he said. "We don't distinguish from others. We are part of the same society that we live in. We condemn terrorism, there is no doubt about it. We don't condone violence. We have been here 15 years in this mosque and we haven't had any problems."

The problem for Muslim leaders who make these pronouncements denouncing terrorism and violence is that they're not only in the minority, but the extremists consider such views to be apostasy punishable by death.

The mosque leaders have more to worry about extremists within Islam attacking their mosque than they do from the general community.

UPDATE:
Trackposted to Outside the Beltway, Perri Nelson's Website, Right Truth, Shadowscope, Stuck On Stupid, Leaning Straight Up, The Amboy Times, Pursuing Holiness, Rightlinx, third world county, The HILL Chronicles, Woman Honor Thyself, stikNstein... has no mercy, Pirate's Cove, The Right Nation, The Pink Flamingo, Dumb Ox Daily News, Wake Up America, Blog @ MoreWhat.com, The Random Yak, 123beta, Adam's Blog, Phastidio.net, The Bullwinkle Blog, Cao's Blog, The Florida Masochist, Jo's Cafe, Conservative Cat, The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns, Walls of the City, The World According to Carl, Blue Star Chronicles, High Desert Wanderer, Gone Hollywood, and The Yankee Sailor, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

UPDATE:
Is the Circuit City store clerk who first alerted authorities to the possibility that something was amiss with the Fort Dix six going to need whistleblower protection to avoid being sued for his actions? Given the way that CAIR is going after those who spoke up over the actions of the Minnesota imams at an airport, it's a good bet that they may try to do the same here.

UPDATE:
Via Instapundit, comes a report of personal experience with two of the Duka brothers. They started out as neighborhood bullies and later became drug dealers in the neighborhood. That they would turn into jihadis comes as a bit of a shock.

UPDATE:
It would appear that the Duka brothers didn't just attend a New Jersey mosque, but the Albanian Islamic Center in Tompkinsville on Staten Island. Where else did they go to attend services? I'm sure that the FBI is looking into that very question - did they get the idea to go on jihad from their fellow congregants or religious leaders?

Fort Dix Defense Claims Entrapment

It didn't take long for the Fort Dix six to trot out the entrapment defense. They always do.

He railed against the United States, helped scout out military installations for attack, offered to introduce his comrades to an arms dealer, and gave them a list of weapons he could procure, including machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades.

These were not the actions of a terrorist, but of a paid FBI informant who helped bring down an alleged plot by six Muslim men to massacre U.S. soldiers at New Jersey's Fort Dix.

And those actions have raised questions of whether the government crossed the line and pushed the six men down a path they would not have otherwise followed.

It is an argument—entrapment—that has been made in other terrorism cases, and one that has failed miserably in this post-Sept. 11 era.

One defense attorney on the case, Troy Archie, said no decision has been made on whether to argue entrapment, but based on the FBI's own account, "the guys sort of led them on."

These guys were thinking about terrorism on their own and didn't need any encouragement of their own. After all, the videos show them engaging in weapons training before the FBI even got involved. They were already moving in the direction, and they were showing a propensity to engage in terrorism even without the FBI involvment.

It doesn't matter that the six misjudged the costs of procuring the AK-47s. They may have thought that the weapons cost $500 each, while they would really cost anywhere from $1,500 to $3,000. Recall that the 1993 WTC bombers didn't think that requesting the deposit back on the rental truck used in the bombing would result in their being captured by law enforcement either. The plotters could have been as dumb as a bag of hammers, but they were plotting and scheming to engage in terrorism. Stupid or uninformed people can still kill.

I still believe that the Duka brothers will eventually turn on the others, claiming that it was Abdullahu and Tatar's fault.

UPDATE:
The New York Times reports that relatives of the six began noticing changes in their behavior beginning a few years ago:

Ramiz Duka said his three cousins started to change two to three years ago. Three young men who had grown up with more American friends than fellow ethnic Albanian immigrants began to lecture other Muslims about religion.

“They were praying different, they were talking different, they were telling people what to believe,” Mr. Duka recalled of Eljvir, Shain and Dritan Duka, three of the six men charged in southern New Jersey this week with plotting to attack the Fort Dix military reservation. “They thought they only knew the right way.”

Ramiz Duka, a Philadelphia area general contractor whose father is the brother of the suspects’ father, Ferik, said relations grew so strained a year ago that he declined an invitation to attend a family wedding. The playing of music — a centuries-old tradition at Albanian weddings — had been banned.

“They thought they only knew the right way.” That's a hallmark of the jihadis and Islamist movement. They believe they know the only right interpretation of Islamic law and what is good for all. The Islamists then want to impose their beliefs on everyone else.

UPDATE:
The six are being held without bail.

Prosecutors argued today that the men, all of whom were born outside the United States, should be denied bail because they posed a flight risk.

Only one of the men, Mohamad Shnewer, requested bail, with his family offering to put up four properties worth $580,000 and requesting that he be placed under house arrest with an electronic monitoring bracelet.

An assistant United States attorney, Stephen R. Stigall, argued that house arrest offered no protection to the public because Mr. Shnewer “was living in that same house” as the plan to attack Fort Dix was being put together.

United States Magistate Joel Schneider ordered that Mr. Shnewer, along with the five others, be held without bail. They have been held in a detention center in Philadelphia since their arrest.

Five of the men — Mohamad Shnewer, 22; Serdar Tatar, 23; Dritan Duka, 28; Shain Duka, 26; and Eljvir Duka, 23 — are charged with conspiring to kill uniformed military persnnel, an offense punishable by life in prison.

They Were Such Good Boys

The New York Times headlines that religion was a guiding force for at least three of the six men accused of plotting terrorist attacks against Fort Dix and other military installations in the region. At least that's what the headline reads. The article itself offers up a melange of apologia though there are some folks within the Albanian community who can't believe that someone would do such a thing against the US, which did so much for them to stop the violence in Kosavo.

No report would be complete without some relative wondering if this was a conspiracy or plot to get them.

“It’s fine to be a religion man,” said Murat Duka, 55, a distant relative of the defendants who was the first of the Dukas — now numbering about 200 — to move to the Northeast and work as a roofer. “But if you get too much to the religion, you get out of your mind and you do stupid things.”

More than 4,600 miles away is Debar, a village near the Albanian border, where the influence of American émigrés is seen in restaurants named Manhattan, Dallas and Miami. In Debar, Elez Duka, a first cousin of the three suspects, expressed disbelief Wednesday that they could be involved in a scheme inspired by Islamic radicals.

“This has to be political propaganda,” said Mr. Duka, 29, who recently opened an Internet cafe there with money sent by his own brothers in America. “America has always helped us.”

The wife of one of the plotters also believes this was a setup:

Dritan Duka - a 28-year-old illegal immigrant from what is now Macedonia - seemed like the average American dad, working hard for his family, playing with his five kids and participating in sports with his pals, said his Brooklyn-born wife, Jennifer Marino.

"He works as a roofer all day long. He comes home tired and then he takes the kids to the park. I don't know when he would have had time to plan this. I believe he was set up," she told The Post. "Everything they are saying is not true."

Although her husband and his two brothers, Eljvir, 23, and Shain, 26 - who have also been charged in the sinister terror plot - are religious, she said they never talked about politics and were nonviolent people.

The denial that surrounds the realization that people that close to you can think about committing such violence is common. You see it when someone murders someone else out of the blue or the nice guy down the street turns out to be a serial killer. No one expects it, yet there it is.

I also get the feeling that the Duka brothers are going to try and portray themselves as being duped by Mohamad Ibrahim Shnewer, and perhaps cut a deal.

The Star Ledger examines the idea of homegrown terrorism, but the thing is that we've seen homegrown terrorists for quite some time - including those who commit terrorism in the name of Islam. However, the problem is that they do not directly link back to al Qaeda or other international terrorist groups but are instead compelled to commit terrorism purely on the violent ideology:

In just the past two years, there have been several high-profile arrests in terror conspiracies apparently seeded within the United States, some bearing the hallmarks of the Fort Dix case: groups of young men acting on little more than anger, and undone by informers long before they could take action.

Last June, seven men were arrested in Miami on suspicion of plotting to blow up the Sears Tower in Chicago. None had any known connection to a terrorism group.

That same month, Canadian authorities arrested 17 Muslim men said to be planning to storm Parliament, take hostages and behead the prime minister.

In February 2006, three people were arrested in Ohio, accused of plotting terrorist attacks against U.S. forces in Iraq.

All of the plots were thwarted, some by sheer happenstance.

"What we are witnessing here is kind of a brand new form of terrorism," Jody Weis, special agent in charge of the FBI's Philadelphia field office, said in announcing the arrests Tuesday. He said threats today come from smaller, more loosely defined cells and individuals who may not be affiliated with al Qaeda but "are inspired by their violent ideology."

Of course, we continue to get folks who dismiss the idea that someone might try to attack US military installations in a terrorist plot. Keith Olbermann, here's looking at you kid. Maybe you forget that little incident on 9/11 where terrorists tried to destroy the Pentagon with a plane. That was an attack on a military installation too. Just think what would happen if the terrorists managed to successfully carry out the attack on Fort Dix. What would happen then? People like Keith would turn around and proclaim that the war on terror is lost, demand the troops be brought home, and demand more security.

Instead, a conscientious store clerk saw something out of the ordinary, informed law enforcement, and got the ball rolling on uncovering a plot that would have serious ramifications if it had come to fruition.

UPDATE:
They were such good boys that one of them was driving around with bomb recipes in his car and referred to Osama as "Uncle Benny."

"He also, at times, would say things that you would think that, 'This guy can't be all there,' but I dismissed them as jokes," the former co-worker, Bob Watts, told ABC's "Good Morning America."

Watts said he and Agron Abdullahu worked together at bakery for more than two years and were "like brothers."

"He was an easygoing guy, made you laugh all the time, he was somebody you really enjoyed working with," Watts said.

Abdullahu sometime made jokes about how the United States couldn't find bin Laden, saying, "U.S., no matter what they do, cannot catch my Uncle Benny," Watts said. He said Abdullahu also showed him bomb recipes that he had in his car.

He said he warned Abdullahu, "you have to watch yourself this day and age, with 9/11, you're going to get yourself into a lot trouble." But Watts said he never saw anything to indicate that his friend hated the country.

UPDATE:
One of the stories that isn't getting as much coverage is the whereabouts of the other four men present at the firing range with the six already in custody. It would appear that the FBI has been keeping tabs on them, but doesn't have sufficient evidence at present to arrest them, though the investigations are continuing (HT: Michelle Malkin)

UPDATE:
Here come the inevitable claims of worry about backlash and that the media and law enforcement need to change their focus instead of on the Islamic jihadis who are consistently behind these terrorist plots.

Authorities’ description of six suspects charged with plotting an attack on Fort Dix as “Islamic militants” is causing renewed worry among New Jersey’s Muslim community. Hundreds of Muslim men from New Jersey were rounded up and detained by authorities in the months following the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, but none were connected to that plot. Now, Muslims fear a resurgence of anti-Islamic sentiment and incidents of bias.

“If these people did something, then they deserve to be punished to the fullest extent of the law,” said Sohail Mohammed, a lawyer who represented scores of detainees after the 2001 attacks. “But when the government says ‘Islamic militants,’ it sends a message to the public that Islam and militancy are synonymous. Don’t equate actions with religion.”

The Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee’s New Jersey chapter participated in a conference call Tuesday with FBI officials to discuss security matters. “What we’re all afraid of is a new backlash,” said Hesham Mahmoud, a spokesman for the group.

There was no first backlash, and there certainly isn't a new backlash now either. After 9/11 there were arrests of people who were here illegally, and many of them were within the Muslim community because of their ties, or suspected ties to the 9/11 hijackers, some of whom actually passed through New Jersey on their way to carrying out the deadliest terrorist attacks in US history. That's not a backlash, but enforcing the law.

There are parts of New Jersey that have been hotbeds for radical Islamists for years - Paterson and Jersey City come to mind. From those cauldrons came the 1993 WTC bombers, the NYC landmark bomb plotters, the 9/11 hijackers came calling in New Jersey, and more recently the PATH tunnel bombers, just to name a few.

These communities do little to rid themselves of the most radical elements, and instead claim that there's going to be problems if the media highlights the religious nature of the terror plotters and law enforcement continue their efforts to crack Islamic terror plots. They claim discrimination and racism will occur, yet there's no evidence that any such events have occurred.

UPDATE:
Looks like I got a media mention in the Star Ledger for my post on this subject yesterday. Thanks for stopping by and reading my humble blog.

Ordinary People: Jihadis In Sheep's Clothes

They were just ordinary people is the refrain being repeated by people who knew or had contact with the six men accused of plotting terrorist attacks against Fort Dix and/or other military installations along the East Coast.

What exactly did you expect? No one really noticed the 9/11 hijackers either. People who have entered this country or those who have decided to engage in jihad on their own are not going to want to bring attention to themselves by broadcasting that they're jihadis.

They are going to want to fit in. They're going to be middle class folks. And yet there were unsettling events surrounding one of the men arrested:

Shortly after Sept. 11, 2001, an FBI agent showed up on Brookmead Drive, in the Philadelphia suburb of Cherry Hill, with a photo of a man named Shnewer and some questions for his neighbors.

Was the man's cab company legitimate? the agent wanted to know, according to a neighbor who was questioned but asked not to be identified. Did he ever speak at length about his work? Did he ever mention terrorism?

This week, the man's son, 22-year-old Mohamad Ibrahim Shnewer, was one of six men arrested on charges stemming from an alleged plot to kill a large number of soldiers at the Fort Dix Army post in southern New Jersey.

The visit from the FBI was just one of many signs that unsettled neighbors of Shnewer, a Jordanian-born U.S. citizen. His fellow residents in two Cherry Hill neighborhoods described the family as unusually noisy, nocturnal, messy and unpleasant.

The children called people names and were suspected of stealing bikes. Doors slammed and cars arrived and left in the middle of the night. The lawn was so overgrown that neighbors took turns mowing it.

"So many people coming and going," said Steve Bender, a neighbor at Shnewer's current address on leafy East Tampa Avenue. "Very nasty and rude."

Yet, the six were done in because someone was smart enough to realize that something wasn't quite right with a video that the six wanted to make copies of. He saw something - and said something to the right authorities who launched an intensive investigation that resulted in the arrests. As the Star Ledger reports:

The Duka brothers -- Dritan, 28, Shain, 26, and Eljvir, known to many as Elvis, 23 -- live together in the Mimosa Drive house. They are ethnic Albanians who were born in the former Yugoslavia and reportedly are in the United States illegally.

Also charged was Shnewer, 22, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Jordan who was the Dukas' brother-in-law, authorities said, and working as a taxi driver in Philadelphia.

The other suspects included Agron Abdullahu, 24, of Buena Vista Township, another ethnic Albanian from Yugoslavia. Abdullahu, identified in the complaint as a one-time sniper in war-torn Kosovo, stands accused of aiding and abetting the others. A legal resident of the United States, he was employed at a ShopRite supermarket.

The sixth man, Serdar Tatar, 23, of Philadelphia, was born in Turkey and was also a legal resident of the United States.

None of the men was on anyone's radar screen, prosecutors say, until federal agents were tipped off by a clerk at a store where the men had dropped off a videotape to be copied. The tape, prosecutors say, showed men firing assault weapons and calling in Arabic for holy war.

The six men practiced at a firing range in the Poconos.

They seemed to be prepared: with terror training tapes, with computerized ballistic simulations, even with what appeared to be a template of the last will and testament drawn up by two of the hijackers from Sept. 11. At the same time, one of the men worried aloud to a government informer: “I just want to be safe, brother. I got five kids, so I don’t want to go down.”

The narrative of a foiled terror plot spelled out in the federal complaint issued yesterday by officials in New Jersey is full of tiny moments that are clearly chilling yet undeniably strange. Certainly, the 27-page document describing a plot to kill soldiers at the Fort Dix Army base in New Jersey stands out as one of the more detailed descriptions to emerge so early in a terrorism case during the last few years.

While the document paints a picture of a bloody-minded, though occasionally unsophisticated, plot, it is worth recalling that acts of terror — even deadly ones — have often included glaring strategic flaws in the past. One of the terrorists in the 1993 scheme to destroy the World Trade Center, in fact, returned to a rental office to claim his deposit for the truck that carried explosives into the complex’s garage.

The fact is that you don't have to be particuarly sophisticated to kill people. You just have to be extremely determined. The WTC bombers succeeded in killing six and wounded more than 1,000 people and came quite close to taking the towers down on that day in 1993, and they might have succeeded in getting away with the attacks to terrorize again had they not sought to claim the deposit on the rental truck.

Those who downplay this terror bust ought to keep in mind that it is far better to thwart these plots before they come to fruition than to deal with the repercussions of an actual attack. Even if this attack went off and didn't manage to kill anyone at Fort Dix, the fact that terrorists even considered attacking a US military installation inside the US would have been a propaganda coup of epic proportions for the jihadis around the world. Al Qaeda would likely try to take credit for the attacks, knowing that the media would play up that angle and show that the global war on terror was a failure because we couldn't even prevent a terrorist attack inside the US against a military installation.

Such an attack would have been likened to the Tet Offensive in Vietnam, where the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese forces managed to attack the US embassy in Saigon and were eventually repulsed fully - with massive losses to the Viet Cong where they were no longer a viable force thereafter. However, the sight of the embassy under seige and the Tet campaign led the public to believe that the war was lost.

Meanwhile, Muslim groups are complaining once again that the focus of the investigation and media coverage is on the religious background of the six. Sorry guys, but when the six made a point to say that they were going to commit acts of terrorism in the name of Allah, you lose the right to complain. These six wanted to commit jihad - to kill in the name of Allah. They were going to seek a fatwa, a religious edict, justifying their terrorist plans. Those are all parts of the complaint and evidence gathered against the six.

If these groups really want to change the image of Muslims around the world, they better start by doing a far better job of outing those extremists within their community that indoctrinate a new generation to the idea of jihad, terrorism, and violence to be done in Allah's name. One Muslim leader quipped:

"When that student in Virginia killed all those people, nobody made a big deal of his religion," said Mustafa. "And when there have been shootings in malls and offices, we don't immediately get told what the religion is. These are six crazy people, that's all they are."

The reason that Cho's religious views weren't made an issue was that Cho himself didn't make his religious views an issue. Here, the six explicitly made their religion a central issue in deciding to commit terrorism.

It's also curious that he mentioned mall shootings - as one of the recent mall shootings involved another Muslim immigrant in Utah, though his motive is unclear. The media repeatedly downplays the religious aspects of various shootings and incidents around the world, and instead of pointing out that the vast majority of terrorist attacks committed around the world are done by Islamic terrorists or that the overwhelming majority of suicide bombings are done by Islamic terrorists, we get comments about how these were just six crazy people. Yes - they may well be crazy, but they were doing so because they believed it was their Muslim religious obligation to do so.

UPDATE:
The New York Post makes an interesting comment:

No doubt lawyers for the Fort Dix Six soon will be claiming that their clients weren't engaged in a "real" plot - indeed, that they are victims of government-inspired "entrapment."

So, here's a question.

Why is it that so many of these individuals, whether in Buffalo, Albany, Fort Dix - or Dearborn, Mich., or the Pacific northwest - are so eager to be "entrapped" into plotting to harm Americans and/or U.S. institutions?

It's about the jihad. Each of the plotters believed that it was their religious obligation to attack the US in one form or another.

UPDATE:
Hot Air has more updates, though many of the initial questions remain - what about the video that shows 10 people and yet only six were arrested. Where are the other four? Is it possible that two of the four were informants for the government once they had been tipped off? No one in the media seems to be pressing that angle to find out what about those other individuals.

UPDATE:
The person who tipped off the authorities to the six works for Circuit City:

A spokeswoman for Circuit City on Wednesday said it was an employee from their Mount Laurel store who alerted authorities to the alleged terrorist plot.

"We can confirm that the tip to authorities about the alleged terrorist plot originated form our store in Mount Laurel, New Jersey," said Jackie Foreman, speaking by telephone from the company's headquarters in Richmond, Va.

Foreman said the store is not releasing the employee's name out of respect for the employee's privacy and since the investigation is ongoing. Foreman confirmed that the employee still works for the company but would not say at which location.

UPDATE:
There are still issues with security at Fort Dix, as the Star Ledger reports:

On Tuesday, hours after word of the arrest of six Yugoslav and Middle Eastern suspects was announced, at least two of the areas directly off the road were populated by dozens of soldiers conducting training exercises not more than 50 yards off the main road.

There were no fences, barriers or visible security patrols to deter an intruder or attacker.

Wednesday morning, the situation was the same. At one of the areas, which a sign identified as the Bastogne Range, a dozen soldiers ate breakfast under a wooden canopy about 30 yards from the road.

About a dozen similar unfenced spots called bivouac areas, where training maneuvers are done, are similarly accessible to the public from main roads cutting through portions of the fort property.

The seemingly open access to some parts of the fort could have proved enticing to the six young men, who federal authorities have accused of plotting a mass killing.

Some of the security issues can be resolved quickly. Fencing off wide areas of the base may take time, which means that the facility is still at risk, as are other military installations around the country that have similar security issues.

UPDATE:
Speaking of security, how exactly did the Duka brothers manage to get into the US illegally and weren't picked up sooner? Malkin has the details, but the gist is that they entered illegally from Mexico, and because they lived in cities whose municipal governments have chose to ignore federal law relating to immigration, they did not get picked up even though they accumulated 19 traffic citations:

A federal law enforcement source confirmed to FOX News that the three — Dritan "Anthony" or "Tony" Duka, 28; Shain Duka, 26; and Eljvir "Elvis" Duka, 23 — also accumulated 19 traffic citations, but because they operated in "sanctuary cites," where law enforcement does not routinely report illegal immigrants to homeland security, none of the tickets raised red flags.

The brothers entered the United States near Brownsville, Texas, in 1984, the source said, which would put their ages at 1 to 6 when they crossed the border.

One has to wonder who got the three across the border illegally, and the parents come to mind. Curiouser and curiouser.

UPDATE:
Trackposted to Outside the Beltway, Perri Nelson's Website, Blog @ MoreWhat.com, The Random Yak, Stuck On Stupid, Cao's Blog, Leaning Straight Up, The Amboy Times, Conservative Cat, The Magical Rose Garden, third world county, stikNstein... has no mercy, The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns, Planck's Constant, Wake Up America, and The Yankee Sailor, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

UPDATE:
Don Surber thinks that college campuses may be safer than military installations for the simple reason that other than the MPs, the soldiers must have their weapons secured. He thinks the damage done by the six on the grounds of Fort Dix could have been severe. I continue to believe that regardless of how much carnage the six were able to accomplish, the real damage would have been as a propaganda victory for the Islamists.

Plotting Against Fort Dix: UPDATES BELOW

A group of six former Yugoslavian nationals were arrested in relation to a plot to attack Fort Dix in New Jersey.

The six 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, about 10 miles east of Philadelphia and 20 miles southwest of Fort Dix, he 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.

The men were arrested while trying to buy automatic weapons in a sale set-up by law enforcement authorities, the official said. Authorities believe the men trained for the attack in the Poconos and allegedly conducted surveillance at other area military institutions, including the Army's Fort Monmouth, the official said.

The official said that the men had lived in the United States for some time and were arrested as part of a joint federal and local investigation.

The Star-Ledger of Newark reported on its Web site that the men had agreed to buy AK-47 assault rifles from an arms dealer who was secretly cooperating with the FBI. It cited a law enforcement person who spoke on condition of anonymity because the source was not authorized to speak about the arrests.

The men wanted to kill as many soldiers as possible. Fort Dix is a major training facility for the US Army.

One gets the feeling the nationality of those six men will be less important than their religious affiliation - though this is just my theory for now. The former Yugoslavia was broken up and sectarian strife resulted in violence between Christians and Muslims.

UPDATE:
Well, it's more than a theory. At least three of the six were Islamists.

Sources tell Newschannel 4's Brian Thompson that the family of one of the suspects owns a pizzeria near Fort Dix and claimed to know the base "like the back of his hand." The same suspect told the alleged terror group it would be easy to penetrate to "get the most soldiers killed."

Investigators said the group of suspects have been discussing and planning for much of the last year. They allegedly pooled their savings to pay for the operation targeted at soldiers stationed here at home.

The six suspects arrested Monday night will face terror conspiracy charges. Three of the men are brothers, all believed to be Islamic radicals. Authorities have told Newschannel 4 that some of the men were born in Albania and the former Yugoslavia. Investigators said most of the suspects have spent several years here in the U.S.

Some of the group's alleged planning was caught on videotape, investigators said. On the videotape there is significant discussion of Martyrdom.

"Who is going to take care of my wife and kids," one suspect asks. Another responds, "Allah will take care of your wife and kids." The alleged terror cell is described by investigators as disciples of Osama Bin Laden. Among the evidence seized was the downloaded will and testament of two Sept. 11 hijackers.

UPDATE:
Hot Air has running updates. There will be a presser at 2:30PM EDT.

UPDATE:
Michelle Malkin has more details, including the identities of those involved (emphasis added).

Dritan Duka (illegal alien)
Eliver Duka (illegal alien)
Shain Duka (illegal alien)
Serdar Tatar (the pizza deliverer...his family owns a pizzeria near Ft. Dix)
Mohamad Shnewer
Agron Abdullahu

It also appears that it wasn't just an attack on Fort Dix, but other installations along the East Coast:

Carolee Nisbet, a public information officer at Fort Dix, said: "I understand that they weren’t just targeting Fort Dix, that it was a multiple-base plan to attack several bases in the Northeast.” She declined to elaborate. At the base this morning, Nisbet said: “They are going to make the security procedures more stringent, but we’re not going to increase the threat level. We are just going to make people more aware of their surroundings.

This begs the question of whether the six were the only members involved in this plot or whether are others still at large who were involved in the plot.

UPDATE:
The six were able to scout out areas at the base because they were pizza delivery workers.

The FBI was tipped off to the group in early 2006 after someone brought a video to a store to be copied onto DVD, according to the agency's criminal complaint. The video showed 10 men, including the six arrested, shooting assault weapons in militia style and calling for jihad, the complaint said.

"What concerns us is, obviously, they began conducting surveillance and weapons training in the woods and were discussing killing large numbers of soldiers," said Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd.

U.S. Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., said U.S. Attorney Christopher J. Christie told him one of the suspects had a job delivering pizzas to the base and used that opportunity to scout out the possible attack.

Smith said the men had been under surveillance for 16 months and practiced their attacks in the Pocono Mountains in northeastern Pennsylvania. He said they also watched Osama bin Laden videos.

Since only six were arrested, that means law enforcement better have a nice chat with the other four peope in the video. They may also have a role in the plot.

UPDATE:
Fort Monmouth was also the focus of the group's surveillance. That base is home to the Army's Communications and Electronics Command and a technology center. It is also scheduled to close under the latest BRAC in 2011.

UPDATE:
The affadavit for the arrest of the six is up at the Smoking Gun. The affidavit makes it clear that the six were engaged in jihad and were seeking to commit acts of terrorism in the name of Islam.

UPDATE:
Jammie has a posting detailing the unhinged nature of the HuffPo crew. The fact is that terrorists are trying to kill Americans around the world and if they attack a US military base inside the US, think of the propaganda spewage as a result.

It wouldn't matter if the attack was successful or not.

The fact that terrorists would try to launch such an attack would send a variety of signals, not the least of which would be - hey the WoT is failing and we're able to hit you anywhere and everywhere.

It would be a recruitment bonus for terrorist groups, like al Qaeda that would quickly rush to take credit for the attack.

As for why they would bother to target Fort Dix, it's simply an attempt to do something spectacular. Why bother with the small fry when you can go for the dough. They've got the means, the opportunity, and the ideological bent to carry out an attack, even if it meant they'd all be killed in the process.

UPDATE:
The complaint against the six has been released. Among the criminal acts alleged: violation of 18 USC 1117, which relates to the defendants obtaining firearms and 18 USC 922(g)(5), relating to illegal aliens possessing firearms.

Also of note is item #23, which stated that the plotters were seeing a fatwa to condone their terrorist agenda. These six were intent upon killing in the name of Islam, and it permeated everything they were doing in furtherance of this plot.

The plotters also considered other targets, including the annual Army-Navy football game that is held in Philadelphia.

Here's the timeline of events thus far.

The Star Ledger's blog picked up my initial comments before reports indicated that the six were indeed Islamists plotting jihad in the name of Islam. The Star Ledger also has a rundown of other media reporting.

UPDATE:
Even as Jammie posts on the disconnect between the Left and the terrorism arrests made today, one needs only to review recent history to know that terrorism and New Jersey have gone hand in hand. 1993 WTC bombers lived in New Jersey and prayed at a Jersey City mosque. That mosque also spawned a later attempt to destroy NYC area landmarks. The 9/11 attacks included Flight 93, which departed from Newark Airport, and whose members stayed in New Jersey at a hotel in Wayne. Six others involved in the 9/11 attacks lived in Paterson, New Jersey.

The more recent plot to flood the WTC bathtub by destroying the PATH tunnels leading from New Jersey was broken last year.

New Jersey is centrally located to New York City, Philadelphia, and a short trip to Washington, DC. There is a large Muslim population living in Paterson and Jersey City, and the concern is that there are quite a few radicals in the community that are preaching jihad. The history of this particular community bears out that fear.

UPDATE:
This subject is generating quite a bit of commentary and punditry. Others blogging: Jules Crittenden, The Donovan, Patterico, AJ Strata, Michelle Malkin, Dan Riehl, Sister Toldjah, Ed Driscoll.

UPDATE:
Still others blogging: Flopping Aces, Outside the Beltway, Blue Crab Boulevard, Ed Morrissey, Counterterrorism Blog, and LaShawn Barber.