Statement by NYPD Commissioner Kelly on JFK plot
Good afternoon. Mayor Bloomberg was briefed by me this morning on these developments. As he has been earlier as the case proceeded.
Once again, would-be terrorists have put New York City in their cross hairs. And once again, NYPD detectives and FBI agents have joined forces to stop them. Together, with the help of the Port Authority police, a potential disaster has been averted.
We were concerned, not only about an attack on the fuel tank farms at JFK but along the 40-mile aviation fuel pipeline that courses its way from Linden, New Jersey through Staten Island, Brooklyn And Queens. The fuel line is the feeding tube that nourishes national and international commerce through laguardia and JFK airports.
That's why when we first learned of this plot, the NYPD's counter terrorism division conducted a mile-by-mile survey of the pipeline. That's also why NYPD police helicopters and harbor launches, as part of their counter-terrorism mission, engage in directed patrols of the pipeline, paying close attention to it, in addition to landmarks and other potential targets throughout the city of New York.
We focus on terrorism every day in New York City because we have to.
If we learned anything from this latest plot, it's that they keep coming back to New York.
Al–Aaeda operative Iyman Farris stood on the Brooklyn Bridge just months after the 9/11 attack, assessing what it would take to bring the bridge down. We have caught iranian intelligence agents conducting similar reconnaissance of New York City subways and landmarks. The NYPD intelligence division thwarted a plot to bomb the Herald Square subway station. And the JTTF (Joint Terrorism Task Force), with many of the same people assembled here today, more recently uncovered a plot to bomb the path tubes and the retaining wall at ground zero.
In that instance, the plotters hoped to flood the financial district and wound the national economy once more. This latest plot was at once different and similar to what we have seen before.
Different in its distinct ties to the caribbean, a region that is rarely thought of in terms of terrorism but of increasing concern to us as a crucible in the foment of islamic radicalism.
But it is also similar in that an apparently self-radicalized New Yorker; born and raised in Guyana who, as a young man, chose Brooklyn to live and Queens to work, only to betray his adopted homeland and plot a catastrophic attack here. We saw Mohamed Barbar and Fayed Hashmi, who was returned to New York from London just last week, both adopt New York City as their home, but gave their loyalty to al qaeda in supporting their fighters abroad.
It tells us that we must remain vigilant, at home and abroad. It's understandable that the average New Yorker may become complacent five and half years after 9/11 without another single successful attack.
But the job of the New York City Police Department and our partners in the FBI is to be intolerant to complacency…to remain ever vigilant …and to continue to remind the pubic that if you see something say something.
We are all obliged to look at the world around us through the prism of 9/11. We are obliged to keep our eyes wide open, and we ask the public to do the same.
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What Do We Know About The Suspects?
WNBC.com is learning more about the four people authorities said were behind this plot.
Three suspects are in custody: Russell Defreitas, Kareem Ibrihim and Abdul Kadir. Another suspect, Abdul Nur is still at large.
Sources said Defreitas, a former cargo worker at JFK allegedly began to plot attacking the US last July or August. Defeitas sought help in carrying out a plan and went to an FBI informant, who gathered information about the plot.
Authorities said Defreitas was very intent on specifically targeting Kennedy Airport. U.S. Attorney Roslynn R. Mauskopf said he wrote, "Anytime you hit Kennedy it is the most hurtful thing to the U.S.... it's like you can kill the man twice."
Mauskopf earlier had called the plan "one of the most chilling plots imaginable."
Defreitas is a U.S. citizen with roots in Guyana.
Kadir, a former member of Parliament in Guyana, was arrested in Trinidad for attempting to secure money for "terrorist operations," according to a Guyanese police commander who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Kadir, a Muslim, left his position in Parliament last year. Muslims make up about 9 percent of the former Dutch and British colony's 770,000 population, mostly from the Sunni sect.
Sources said counter-terrorism officials have been following the plot for a little less than one year.
Rep. Peter King, a Republican from Long Island who is on the Homeland Security committee, said that despite the lengthy investigation, New Yorkers were never in danger. Still, he told MSNBC he believes that if the plot weren't uncovered, the "tragedy would have rivaled September 11th."