We can discard the PR angle. If HS and FBI merely wanted a splashy score for PR, this wouldn't have broken on a Saturday morning in june. Possibilities: this cell actually was close to pulling this off and they had the materials. Or, the informant's cover was blown.
Regardless, it was a significant bust-up. Hats off to the Joint Terrorism Task Force. As many reasons as there are to be critical of the bureaucrats among them--and I am, loudly and often--it appears America still can count on its good field agents. One of the most impressive pieces of info about this operation is that there were no leaks.
I think they felt these jerk offs were acting on their own. Guess they felt they went as far as they could following these guys.
Looks like they were getting help:
One law enforcement official played down Mr. Defreitas’s skills as a terrorist, calling him “a sad sack” and “not a Grade A terrorist.” But he noted that his efforts to solicit the backing and blessing of Jamaat Al Muslimeen, which conducted a deadly attack on Trinidad’s Parliament during a failed coup attempt in 1990, could have had devastating consequences.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/03/nyregion/03plot.html?ex=1338523200&en=9522ec0c5e7d23b3&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
The reason for why now? Seems to be that they were going to travel and the FBI was afraid of losing track of them:
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.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/06/02/national/main2877931.shtml