JFK Bomb Plotters To Stand Trial This Week In New York; UPDATE Nur Enters Guilty Plea

The JFK bomb plotters who hoped to blow up gas lines that run into JFK International Airport in Queens are to stand trial this week in a New York courtroom. The terrorists had hoped that blowing up the gas lines and the gas tank farm at the airport would have caused massive devastation and mass casualties.

Jurors will be asked to decide whether two men, American Russel Defreitas, 66, and Guyanese Abdul Kadir, 58, a former member of parliament in his South American country, joined in a conspiracy to blow up buildings, fuel tanks and pipelines at John F. Kennedy International Airport.

They face life in prison if convicted by jurors in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn. Opening statements in the trial are due to be held on Wednesday.

While New York was the target of the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States as well as other plots such as the botched Times Square car bombing in May, relatively few cases involving those incidents actually go to trial.

Of the suspects charged in the 11 plots against New York City that authorities say they have foiled since the September 11 attacks, many have been charged in other countries or have pleaded guilty and avoided trial.

The plot originally involved four men, but one of the other two is expected to enter a guilty plea and a fourth was deemed too ill to stand trial.

Defreitas had previously worked at the airport as a security guard and was involved in plotting where and how to attack the airport and its facilities. The group is further alleged to have sought assistance from Jamaat Al Muslimeen, an Islamic terror group that had been active in Trinidad.

UPDATE:
Abdel Nur entered a guilty plea in court today, and will face 15 years in prison for his role in the terror plot.

Abdel Nur copped to providing material support to co-conspirators a day before he was scheduled to go on trial in Brooklyn Federal Court. Nur faces 15 years in prison under the plea deal approved by prosecutors in Brooklyn and the U.S. Justice Department. He could have gotten life in prison if convicted after a trial.

"I understood the goal of the planning of the destruction of fuel tanks and fuel by planes was to cause major economic loss in the United States," Nur said in court.

Al Qaeda Faces Recruitment Challenge; And So Do We

I can't say I'm sorry to hear that, but the Guardian reports that al Qaeda faces recruitment challenges.

Speaking to the Guardian in advance of tomorrow's eighth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, western counter-terrorism officials and specialists in the Muslim world said the organisation faced a crisis that was severely affecting its ability to find, inspire and train willing fighters.

Its activity is increasingly dispersed to "affiliates" or "franchises" in Yemen and North Africa, but the links of local or regional jihadi groups to the centre are tenuous; they enjoy little popular support and successes have been limited.

Lethal strikes by CIA drones – including two this week alone – have combined with the monitoring and disruption of electronic communications, suspicion and low morale to take their toll on al-Qaida's Pakistani "core", in the jargon of western intelligence agencies.

Interrogation documents seen by the Guardian show that European Muslim volunteers faced a chaotic reception, a low level of training, poor conditions and eventual disillusionment after arriving in Waziristan last year.

"Core" al-Qaida is now reduced to a senior leadership of six to eight men, including Bin Laden and his Egyptian deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, according to most informed estimates. Several other Egyptians, a Libyan and a Mauritanian occupy the other top positions. In all, there are perhaps 200 operatives who count.

The most significant recent development is evidence that al-Qaida's alliance with the Taliban in Pakistan and Afghanistan is fraying, boosting the prospect of acquiring intelligence that will lead to Bin Laden's capture or death. Despite an intensive US-led manhunt, there has not been a credible lead on the Saudi-born al-Qaida leader in years. Bin Laden's nickname among some CIA hunters is "Elvis" because there have been so many false sightings of him.

When you consider that the terrorist group is being relentlessly hunted down in former safe havens like Pakistan and Afghanistan, it's affiliates in Iraq were decimated, and even Hamas considers al Qaeda a mortal threat to its own terror operations, you can see why al Qaeda has problems.

However, that's not quite the full story. Al Qaeda may be losing its power as a distinct entity, but its worldview and the pursuit of jihad is not going away. It's still a very powerful force in places like Pakistan, Iran, Somalia, and other failed states and regions around the world. Instead of groups directly linked to al Qaeda, there are more freelance groups and cells operating to plot attacks. Groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jamaat al-Muslimeen fill the void.

Even in Pakistan and Afghanistan, the Taliban under the Mehsud clan took up al Qaeda's banner and were effectively holding off Pakistan's military in the frontier provinces. Recent airstrikes killed Baitullah Mehsud, but a relative picked up where he left off.

The problem is that when you drop the number of members in a core group below a certain point, the ability to track, let alone penetrate, the terror group to gain intel about whereabouts, plans, and coordination with operational terror cells becomes increasingly more difficult. With the core leadership down to 6-8 terrorists, finding those terrorists in the vast space of the frontier provinces of Pakistan and Afghanistan is exceedingly difficult.

It requires continued vigilance to prevent another mass casualty attack, and to consider attacks in venues that might not be suspected.

Terror Investigation Updates

The Fort Dix Six trial may include some interesting elements, including an anonymous jury and the use of technology to provide information to journalists following the case. Prosecutors want to keep the names of the jurors confidential because of possible threats to their safety. The defendants are waiving their right to a speedy trial because of the complexity of the case.

The British car bomb investigation continues, but the Australians may be forced to release one of the suspects for lack of sufficient evidence:

At a hearing on Friday in Brisbane, Australia, the police dropped their request to extend the detention of the suspect, Dr. Mohammed Haneef. Now, authorities have 12 hours of interrogation time left before they would be forced to let him go unless they file charges a new request to extend the detention.

The affidavits, copies of which were provided to The New York Times, offer the first official details about the contacts between Dr. Haneef and some of the suspects currently detained in Britain. The investigators are now trying to differentiate those contacts that are “honest relationships from more sinister,” a senior Australian official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak with the news media.

“I suspect it will turn out that he is in the innocent category,” the official said of Dr. Haneef.

One of the eight suspects detained after the attacks was released on Thursday in Britain, Reuters reported. The suspect, Marwa Asha, was arrested with her husband, Dr. Mohammed Asha, as they drove on a highway in northern England hours after the botched Glasgow bombing. Dr. Asha remains in custody.

Russell Defreitas, the alleged ringleader of the JFK terror plot, has entered a plea of not guilty.

Defreitas appeared in Brooklyn federal court, clad in a blue and orange prison uniform, and addressed U.S. Magistrate Judge Lois Bloom in a raspy, barely audible voice.

He agreed to waive his right to an immediate trial after prosecutors said the complexity of the case and the need to transcribe hundreds of hours of taped conversations would delay their preparation.

His three co-defendants - Kareem Ibrahim of Trinidad, and Abdul Kadir and Abdel Nur, both citizens of Guyana - face an extradition hearing in Trinidad, set for Aug. 2.

This article suggests that the investigation continues in that terror plot and at least six others are being investigated for their involvement.

Meanwhile, the US Senate has voted to double the bounty on Osama bin Laden to $50 million. I don't think any amount of money will lead to his capture; I suspect he's already dead as Zawahiri has become the public face of al Qaeda over the past year and change.

UPDATE:
Muhammad Hanef has been charged by the Australian authorities in connection with the British gas car bomb plot.

Australian police charged an Indian doctor Saturday with providing support to a terrorist organization by recklessly giving a member of the group his mobile phone SIM card before he moved to Australia.

Muhammad Haneef, 27, is the second person to be charged over the botched attacks on London and Glasgow on June 29 and 30. The other is Bilal Abdullah, who is being held in London on charges of conspiring to set off explosions.

Haneef "has been charged with providing support to a terrorist organization," police said in a statement. The maximum penalty is 15 years in prison.

Australian police arrested Haneef, who moved to Australia from Britain last year, as he tried to leave the eastern city of Brisbane on a one-way ticket to India on July 2.

British police tracked a SIM card in the possession of one of the men accused in the failed Britain bomb attacks to Haneef, and alerted their Australian counterparts.

The Widening JFK Terror Probe Investigation

The New York Times insisted that the JFK terror plot was not a situation worthy of front page attention. Their misjudgment continues to shine through on the issue, as reports continue to show that the investigation is widening and that law enforcement is trying to track down multiple individuals around the world in relation to the plot. The name of Adnan Shukrijumah continues to pop up in relation to this investigation. That would be significant considering that he's an integral part of al Qaeda's ongoing war against the US.

Of course, those individuals were mentioned in the court filings, namely as Individuals A through G. The four arrested thus far are likely only the tip of this latest iceberg.

We've also learned more about the informant; quite possibly too much information as his name and phone number were provided. It would appear that his phone number is to a New York metro area telephone exchange.

JFK Terror Plot Links To Iran To Be Examined

The New York Times considered this plot to be something less than worthy of front page news, and yet the hits keep on coming. The New York Sun reports that the FBI and JTTF are looking into whether the plotters had connections with Iran:

As New York police and the FBI interview suspects in an alleged plot to attack John F. Kennedy International Airport, one thread the ongoing investigation will explore is why one of the suspects was planning to go to Iran.

A former Guyanese legislator, Abdul Kadir, was arrested in Trinidad on Friday on a plane bound for Caracas, Venezuela. According to Mr. Kadir's wife, Isha Kadir, he was in the island nation to pick up an Iranian visa so he could attend an Islamic conference in Tehran. Two of Mr. Kadir's children are studying in Iran, according to Mrs. Kadir.

Trinidad's counterterrorism police are also investigating whether one of Mr. Kadir's alleged co-conspirators, a 56-year old Shiite imam in Trinidad named Kareem Ibrahim, had ties to Shiite organizations in southern Iraq and Iran through an Islamic discussion group he hosted, according to the Trinidad Express.

In interviews in the Guyanese press, Mrs. Kadir said her husband's Iran connection was likely the reason the FBI was requesting his extradition.

"We are shocked, we are not part of these things," she was quoted by Kaieteur News in Guyana. "To begin with, we are not Al Qaeda ... we are Shia. My husband is a decent, devoted, intelligent Muslim. Both of us have relatives in the United States. It would be nonsensical for him to plot something like this."

As for that last part by Mrs. Kadir, one only has to be reminded that Hizbullah, the Shi'a Islamic terrorist group, had no problems launching terrorist attacks against the US in the past, and regularly receives support from Iran. Sunni and Shi'a have a common goal in going after infidels and the West, enough so that they would be willing to set aside their doctrinal differences to go after the US. Iran's reach around the world is growing, having aligned itself with dictators and thugs across the globe:

If Iran's hand is found behind the JFK airport plot, it would raise an alarm about the Islamic Republic's recent alliances with America's hemispheric enemies. Since the 2005 ascendance of President Ahmadinejad in Iran, the Iranian regime has strengthened ties with such leaders as President Castro of Cuba, President Chavez of Venezuela, and even President Reagan's one-time foe, President Ortega of Nicaragua.

Judging a Threat

Mike Kelly notes the obvious problems with trying to minimize the terror plot against the Buckeye pipeline and the JFK fuel tank farms. Just what exactly is an acceptable loss from terrorism. The so-called experts that have been cited by the media don't seem to have a problem noting that the explosions would be largely confined and the pipeline wouldn't completely go up in a massive explosion, but they ignore the fact that there are quite a few people who would be affected in the immediate vicinity of the explosion - those are people who would be injured or killed and their property damaged or destroyed:

One expert even suggested a pipeline fireball would look gruesome on TV but would not cause too much damage – just a block of homes near the pipeline or a charred jetliner on the JFK tarmac.

Stop for a moment and consider what that means: Have we gotten to the point where a block of homes or a charred jetliner is not that bad? Have we also reached the point where we look for ways to downplay the abilities of terrorists rather than take them seriously?

Are we again suffering from a failure to imagine?

In announcing that they broke up the alleged plot, police and federal officials pointed out that suspects, along with an undercover informant, went on several trips to assess possible targets. The suspects also reportedly collected satellite photos of the airport from the Internet, mapped out their escape routes and even discussed disabling the JFK control tower.

And that's not serious enough?

It's not entirely clear how many explosive devices the suspected terrorists planned to set off. Maybe they planned just one – on a portion of a fuel line that hooks to one 747 jetliner that is docked at a terminal.

Hundreds of people could be killed. Isn't that serious?

If the plotters set off a half-dozen explosive devices along the pipeline route, a dozen or more blocks of residential neighborhoods could be affected. And that's not serious?

Whether its suspected terrorists near Buffalo, a plot to blow up PATH tunnels, or even the recent alleged plan by six New Jersey men to murder soldiers at Fort Dix, the announcements were followed by other announcements discounting those plots in some way. Why?

It's a damned good question. Another good question would be to ask why the New York Times has been at the forefront of minimizing the seriousness of the averted outcome, or the possible ties to international terrorist groups including al Qaeda? What does the Times know that all the other papers, including the Washington Post, New York Post, New York Daily News, The Record, The New York Sun, New York Newsday, Newark Star-Ledger, and other papers do not? All treated this story with the proper amount of seriousness - giving front page coverage and detailing the threat and related information. The Times buried the story in the innards of the paper and didn't even treat it with a front page above the fold spot. Most curious. Oh, and not to be outdone, Keith Olbermann questions the timing of the latest terror plot to be uncovered. I question his sanity and grip on reality.

Mayor Bloomberg, gets flippant over the terror plot. That's one of the infuriating things about Bloomberg when it comes to security matters; he always seems to get the tone and tenor of his comments wrong. There are good reasons to be concerned about the terror plot and the security at the airport and the pipeline system, but to cast them aside casually is a mistake.

There are plenty of targets that are out in plain sight, and terrorists may be gunning for them as well.

Meanwhile, the informant that broke this plot open for investigators was so convincing that he was able to get the other plotters to confide specific details of the plot to him.

UPDATE:
The New York Post editorial page wonders what the heck the agenda is at the Times when it couldn't be bothered to produce a front page story on the thwarted JFK terror plot when ever other major paper did.

Yet far more important to the Times than the prospect of a plot aiming to out-do 9/11 were front-page stories about:

* The debate over the legality of detaining "boy fighters" in the Guantanamo prison camp.

* How the brick laying trade in India is benefiting peasants.

* Proper upkeep for "the most treasured violins."

Let's be clear here: The "paper of record" isn't guilty of merely poor news judgment. It's got an agenda.

Numerous newspapers understood the gravity of a plot against New York by terrorist upstarts from a seemingly unlikely part of the world - the Caribbean, just a few hours from U.S. shores. The Washington Post, for example, put the story on its front page Sunday.

Nor is the Times' coverage of this story a quirk: The paper has downplayed several other terror cases because the plotters were "merely" in the "talking" stage. Last month, after the Fort Dix Six case came to light, the paper ran a piece called "Informer's Role Draws Praise and Questions" - casting doubt on "the legitimacy of the investigations" because of the role of an FBI informer.

None of that should matter.

The point is, an unknown number of ruthless actors around the world - some in our backyard - continue to emerge and threaten the nation. No doubt the 9/11 plot also once seemed like something no one could pull off.

UPDATE:
Abdel Nur, the fourth member of the JFK terror plot, has surrendered to authorities in Trinidad.

Guyanese suspect in an alleged plot to attack New York's John F. Kennedy Airport surrendered to police Tuesday in Trinidad, a police official said.

Abdel Nur turned himself in at a police station outside the Trinidadian capital of Port-of-Spain, police spokeswoman Wendy Campbell told The Associated Press.

Rick Moran takes Olbermann to task for his inanities and Michelle Malkin points out the ostrich-like symptoms among some politicians who think the threats are not as serious as they are.

UPDATE:
The NYT responds to why they didn't put the JFK terror plot on the front page:

A. Here's the basic thinking on the J.F.K. story: In the years since 9/11, there have been quite a few interrupted terrorist plots. It now seems possible to exercise some judgment about their gravity. Not all plots are the same. In this case, law enforcement officials said that J.F.K. was never in immediate danger. The plotters had yet to lay out plans. They had no financing. Nor did they have any explosives. It is with all that in mind, that the editors in charge this weekend did not put this story on the front page.

In truth, the decision was widely debated even within this newsroom. At the front page meeting this morning, we took an informal poll and a few editors thought the story should have been more prominently played. Some argued it should have been fronted, regardless of the lameness of the plot, simply because it was what everyone was talking about.

Lame is the excuse for deciding what makes the front page and what doesn't. The plot wasn't nearly as lame as they claim, and the players aren't fully known if they bothered to read the complaint.

They also believe that just because the plot wasn't actionable at the time the four were taken down, it wasn't worth mentioning on the front page instead of an article about bricks. That's one of the reasons that the Times keeps slipping in circulation. Those kinds of journalistic decisions keep coming back to hurt them.

UPDATE:
Wouldn't you know, but there was an incident with a pipeline in the New York metro area today. A pipeline rupture resulted in three people being injured:

A section of roadway in Bergen County town exploded at the start of rush hour this afternoon, flipping a car onto its roof, sending macadam into the air and injuring the driver and two police officers, authorities said.

The roadway blew up on River Road at Henley Avenue in New Milford when an underground gas line ruptured as it was being tested using compressed air, Sgt. Stephen Littlefield said. He said the line was not yet in service, and there was no gas explosion.

The driver of the car, who was not identified, was taken to Hackensack University Medical Center with a broken arm, the sergeant said.

Al Qaeda Involved in JFK Terror Plot?

According to FoxNews, one of the hoped for goals of the ongoing investigation into the four men charged in connection with the JFK terror plot was an al Qaeda leader who had a $5 million bounty on his head and was al Qaeda's nuclear weapons expert:

Al Qaeda's reported nuclear whiz kid — a "tantalizing terror figure" with a $5 million bounty on his head — was the figure investigators had hoped to snag in their 18-month probe of a plot to blow up a New York airport, the New York Post reported Monday.

The name of Adnan Gulshair el-Shukrijumah, reportedly the man Usama bin Laden tapped to lead a previous plot to detonate nuclear bombs simultaneously in several U.S. cities, came up at several points in taped conversations during the probe, law-enforcement sources familiar with the investigation told the paper.

Those living near the pipeline aren't entirely satisfied with the thwarted plot because security concerns remain:

"The pipeline is a ticking time bomb because anyone can go down there at any time," a retired city worker who lives a block from the pipeline in Brooklyn, Morton Pupko, said.

The pipeline's operator, Buckeye Partners, has said that in the event of an attack, sections of the 40 miles of pipeline that run between Linden, N.J., and Queens could be isolated easily by shutoff valves.

The president of Accufacts Inc., a company that investigates oil and gas pipelines, Richard Kuprewicz, said an explosion in the pipeline would probably extend for hundreds or thousands of feet, not miles.

Consider that there are sections of the pipeline that pass under densely populated areas of the City, and the potential for a catastrophic attack with mass casualties is a possibility, despite the safeguards built into the pipeline.


Meanwhile, I wonder whether the reports over the past several months about how the Port Authority was working on a deal with the New York and New Jersey governors on a plan to have National Guardsmen operate in the Port Authority's PATH system was not tangentially connected to the ongoing terror investigation.

Having the National Guard bolster the Port Authority police in the PATH system would free up Port Authority police to operate at JFK airport and shift resources to the areas that were likely to be affected by a terror plot. When the plan to station National Guardsmen in the PATH system was announced, the Port Authority pointed out that there were no specific threats against the PATH system that had been made, but it would seem logical that such a move would enable the shift in resources to where it was needed.

And speaking of PATH and other rail and subways systems in the NY metro area, the NYPD is calling for a total order maintenance sweep of all cars in the system to improve security:

While it is unclear exactly how much funding the New York City Police Department spends on counterterrorism, the department is leading a $30 million program funded by the Department of Homeland Security to create a 50-mile perimeter barring nuclear weapons from the city, investigating the importation of chlorine, which can be used in the manufacturing of deadly bombs, and deploying a counterterrorism unit into the streets and the subways of the city every day.

Adding to the department's counterterrorism efforts, officers from the city's police department and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority are now performing a counter-terrorism reconnaissance program, known as "total order maintenance sweeps," or TOMS, at Metro-North and Long Island Rail Road commuter stations. The sweeps, where a patrol of officers inspects each train car on every train that pulls into a commuter station, are being implemented randomly across the city.

"Attacks in London against the mass transit system there demonstrated how planning and bomb assembly took place outside of London," Mr. Kelly said. "The Madrid commuter rail bombings showed how commuter trains approaching the central city were also targeted. NYPD presence on Metro-North and LIRR trains is just one more element in widening counterterrorism coverage and cooperation among neighboring jurisdictions and agencies."

Elsewhere, the unindicted coconspirator in ABSCAM, Rep. John Murtha, thinks that the latest terror plot is a response to the US involvment in Iraq. Murtha apparently hasn't been paying attention to the facts. Defreitas specifically stated that he wanted to attack the US and JFK airport because he claimed to have seen US weapons being shipped to Israel where they could be used against fellow Muslims. That was included in the complaint against the four accused men. Murtha either ignores the facts, is lying, or both.

UPDATE:
According to the FBI, Shukrijumah appears to have gone to Pakistan, where he's likely joined up with al Qaeda elements. As Allah notes, if they had captured Shukrijumah, it would have been an intel bonanza and tactical victory on par with the capture of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

UPDATE:
One of the curious aspects of the coverage of this story is the abject failure of the New York Times to provide above the fold coverage to a story with great import to the New York metropolitan region. Every other paper in the region has devoted at least one day of front page coverage to the story, if not more (see nj.com, northjersey.com, nysun.com, nypost.com, nydailynews.com, and nynewsday.com for a sampler). The New York Times, instead buried the story on the inside pages of the paper. Most curious. Even if the New York Times believes the plot wasn't going to cause as much damage as FBI investigators believed or that experts considered the threat to destroy miles of pipelines that snaked through the New York metro area to be remote, the fact that the FBI was hoping to nab a major al Qaeda figure should have rung some bells.

UPDATE:
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UPDATE:
NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly says that explosives were available to the JFK plotters:

"Did they have explosives in their possession? No. But clearly, there were explosives available in Guyana," Kelly said.

Kelly said the four Muslim suspects made repeated trips between the U.S., Guyana and the Caribbean while plotting the JFK terror plot. Several of the trips were made to try to win support from Jamaat al Muslimeen, an extremist Muslim group in Trinidad and Tobago, Kelly said.

"We don't know exactly what this case could have changed into, could have morphed into, if they were able to successfully create a partnership with this militant group," Kelly said on CBS' "Face the Nation."

Kelly, who has assigned 1,000 cops to fight terrorism, said it was only a matter of time before the alleged mastermind, Russell Defreitas, 63, of Brooklyn, got his hands on explosives.

"They tried to get money, and they tried to get explosives," Kelly said. "I think the investigators took this case down at the appropriate time."

UPDATE:
Say hi for the video - tapes of the last encounter between Defreitas and the informant before Defreitas was taken into custody have been released.

UPDATE:
One of the things that has gone rather unremarked upon is that there are quite a few references to unnamed individuals. James Robbins notes:

Reading the indictment against the four would-be JFK airport bombers, Russell Defreitas, Abdul Nur, Kareem Ibrihim and Abdul Kadir, I was struck by the phrase “together with others” which frequently followed their names. It is on page 1, page 2, page 3, twice on page 4. In the course of the document we are introduced to these others, known only as Individuals A-G. There must be some legal rationale why we can’t know their identities. It surely can’t be to conceal from the Individuals that we know what they were up to; they must have figured out who is which letter by now. But until we know who Messrs. A-G are, we can’t know the extent of the network, or the magnitude of the threat.

Of the six, the most interesting are A and E. “A” is one of the ringleaders of the plan, playing a key role in conceptualizing and promoting it. Yet for some reason, he was not indicted. “E” is even more important — a businessman in Georgetown Guyana, who funds jihadists on their missions and comes across in the indictment as extremely knowledgeable in matters of terrorism. It seems as though he has done this many times before. He served as a mentor for the prospective attackers, but eventually pulled out of the plan when he thought it might be compromised. Good instincts.

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.

Terror Plot Thwarted at JFK Airport?

Four men have been charged in a terror plot to blow up jet fuel storage tanks at JFK Airport in New York City. One of the four may have worked at the airport:

According to NewsChannel4's Jonathan Dienst, sources said federal investigators have made arrests in an alleged terror plot on Kennedy Airport.

Four people have been charged. One is in custody in New York.

Sources said the plot involved a plan to blow up a jet-fuel pipeline at JFK setting off a potential massive explosion.

Law enforcement officials said the plot may involved a former airport worker.

This situation is developing, and a press conference is scheduled for this afternoon.

UPDATE:
Some background statistics on JFK Airport and the aviation gas facilities:

JFK has a total storage capacity of 32 million gallons. It features:
- 62 tanks in bulk storage and 40 tanks in satellite
- 50 miles of underground pipe
- Five piers
- Transfers of fuel to nine unit terminal buildings (UTB) through 28 separate fuel systems
- Fuel tank farms protected by high pressure foam systems
- More than one billion gallons of fuel were dispensed in 2002.

An attack on the fuel tank farm could lead to a major shutdown of air operations at the airport, beyond the initial need to close the airport to traffic due to the fire and smoke.

Aerial imagery of the airport here.

UPDATE:
Buckeye Pipe Line Company is a major jet fuel provider at the airport.

The NYT reports that three have been arrested and a fourth is still being sought:

Three people were arrested and one other was being sought Saturday in connection to a plot to set off explosives at John F. Kennedy International Airport, officials close to the investigation said.

The plot, which never got past the planning stages, did not involve airplanes or passenger terminals, according to the two officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because details of the arrests had not yet been announced.

UPDATE:
The FoxNews report indicates the target was a pipeline that feeds the JFK airport fuel tank farm:

Sources said the plot involved a plan to blow up a jet-fuel pipeline at JFK setting off a potential massive explosion.

Details were to be given out at a 1 p.m. news conference.

The pipeline takes fuel from a facility in Linden, N.J., to the airport. Other lines service LaGuardia Airport and Newark Liberty International Airport.

UPDATE:
Hot Air, LGF, and QandO are all blogging the developing situation.

UPDATE:
Don Surber wonders how the feds found out about the plot. Good question. I am betting that it was some astute civilian observer who noted something out of order and called in the feds who launched an investigation, much as the Fort Dix Six were discovered by a Circuit City store clerk.

UPDATE:
Identities of some of those involved have been made public:

A senior law enforcement official told FOX News that of the three arrests, one was in New York and two were in Trinidad. The New York suspect has been identified as Russell Afreitas, a former JFK employee who allegedly planned to attack the airport's fuel supply because he thought he could do more damage than attacking a passenger terminal. Afreitas is a Muslim U.S. citizen from Guyana.

In carrying out the alleged plot, Afreitas unknowingly recruited an FBI informant, and surveillance on Afreitas began.

One of the other suspects arrested in Trinidad was identified as Abdul Kabir, a member of Parliament of Guyana.

Very curious.

UPDATE:
The names of the four involved are: Russell Defreitas, Abdul Nur, Kareem Ibrihim and Abdul Kadir. Hot Air points out that there's one al Qaeda bigwig who has connections to Trinidad and has been itching to hit at the US for some time, though CBS claims that the four do not have ties to al Qaeda.

No, they have ties to another Islamic terrorist group, the Jamaat al-Muslimeen.

Via nj.com: CNN claims that the plot was a level below the Fort Dix plot in that no explosives had been purchased and no set date had been made for the attack.

UPDATE:
More detail on the steps taken by the plotters in furtherance of an attack:

The official said the plotters had conducted surveillance on giant jet fuel tanks at JFK and the Buckeye pipeline that runs from New Jersey to the airport. They had taken surveillance video of the targets and took it to Trinidad to review the tape, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the arrests were not yet announced.

UPDATE:
WNBC:

Sources said the plot involved putting explosives inside the fuel pipeline but realized that “it was not technically feasible.”

Other jihadis have attempted to put together terrorist attacks against other facilities around the country, including one that would have attacked the cables of the Brooklyn Bridge in order to destroy the bridge. That too was considered not a feasible way to destroy the bridge. However, it did raise concerns that someone might try again, and the anchorages for the bridge were made more secure.

The same jihadis involved in this current plot could just have easily decided to directly attack the tank farm or one of the points on the pipeline where it might cause serious damage to the surrounding area.

UPDATE:
Possible ties to al Qaeda after all?

FBI agents feared but never confirmed the three men accused of plotting to attack John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York were linked to one of the most wanted al Qaeda leaders, Adnan Shukrijumah, known to have operated out of Guyana and Trinidad.

Officials tell the Blotter on ABCNews.com that they heard repeated references to “Adnan” during the extensive wiretaps conducted on the suspects’ telephone conversations, including calls to Guyana and Trinidad.

There is a $5 million reward for information on Shukrijumah, who officials consider extremely dangerous because of the years he spent living in the Miami area and his known ties to al Qaeda. Some of the 9/ll hijackers attended a south Florida mosque run by Shukrijumah’s now deceased father.

UPDATE:
Ed Morrissey points out there are possible ties to Germany, which for the observant among us, was where Mohammad Atta and the 9/11 gang set the wheels of that attack in motion.

Others blogging: Bill's Bites, Junkyard Blog, Suitably Flip, Jammie Wearing Fool, Counterterrorism Blog, Jay Tea at Wizbang, and Blogs of War.

UPDATE:
Here's a copy of the complaint. Strangely enough, none of the major left-leaning blogs have threads devoted to this subject. Very curious.

UPDATE:
The Justice Department also released a statement on the matter.