Posted on 06/03/2007 7:53:27 PM PDT by blam
Plot to blow up JFK is 'tip of the iceberg'
By Toby Harnden, in Washington
Last Updated: 2:16am BST 04/06/2007
The alleged conspiracy to blow up John F Kennedy airport, in New York, and a recent plot to kill soldiers at a nearby United States Army base represent only the "tip of the iceberg" of terrorist plots against America, according to US officials.
"There's a lot of activity out there," a counter-terrorism official said yesterday.
Abdul Kadir: suspected of plotting to attack fuel line
"Obviously, you don't want to tip off every suspect that they are being monitored. On the other hand, we are not going to wait until the fuse is lit."
He said that the airport plot, which sparked a lengthy FBI sting operation, was first detected by CIA operatives in the Caribbean and South America nearly 18 months ago.
"Our intelligence agencies pay careful attention to what goes on there," the official told The Daily Telegraph.
"Although a lot of the public focus is on Europe, we're also looking closely at the home-grown threat and what's going on in our own back yard."
He indicated that dozens of other plots were being monitored but that improved co-operation between the CIA and FBI - the patchy nature of which was a major criticism of the 9/11 Commission Report - was bearing fruit.
The FBI announced at the weekend that they had foiled a plan to blow up a 40-mile fuel pipeline to JFK airport, which handles a thousand flights a day. It was allegedly hatched by Russell Defreitas, a Guyanese-born American citizen who had enlisted the help of a Guyanese politician and a radical Islamist group in Trinidad, when he worked as a cargo handler at the airport before 1995.
The counter-terrorism official said that although the plan "was not technically possible" it was one of many cases being investigated by the US government and highlighted the twin dangers of Muslim Islamists holding American passports and plots with links to other countries.
Three alleged plotters have been arrested. Surveillance tapes recorded Defreitas, 63, becoming enraged at seeing American missiles being shipped to Israel where, he believed, they would be used to kill Muslims.
He was recorded saying that he "wanted to do something to get those bastards".
The airport was a symbol that would put "the whole country in mourning" if it were destroyed.
"Any time you hit Kennedy, it is the most hurtful thing to the United States. To hit Kennedy.... They love John F Kennedy, wow... like he's the man. It's like you can kill the man twice."
His scheme could "cause greater destruction than in the September 11 attacks" and would be so large that "even the Twin Towers can't touch it", Defreitas said on separate occasions - a boast the authorities said was overblown. According to the FBI, Defreitas linked up with Kareem Ibrahim, a Trinidanian connected to the Jamaat Al-Muslimeen, an extremist Black Muslim group that attempted to overthrow the government of Trinidad in 1990, and two Guyanans, Abdul Kadir and Abdel Nur.
Nur, of Pakistani origin, is still at large. Kadir, an imam and former member of the Guyanese parliament, was arrested after a plane on which he was flying to Venezuela was turned back to Trinidad. His wife said he was heading to Iran for a "religious conference".
FBI officers taped another cell member, identified only as "Individual F" stating that Kadir had connections to terrorists in the Middle East and South America.
Both Trinidad and Guyana have large South Asian populations and influential Muslim communities.
Storage tanks are seen on the grounds of John F. Kennedy Airport
The arrests came less than a month after the FBI announced that it had broken up another Islamist cell, mainly involving ethnic Albanians. Its members were accused of plotting to kill soldiers at the Fort Dix base in New Jersey.
As in the Fort Dix case, an FBI informant was used to infiltrate the alleged airport plotters.
"The FBI was all over the plot from the start and there was textbook co-operation with other agencies," said the counter-terrorism official.
"But this shows the threat posed by the unknown terrorist, the person who becomes almost self-radicalised.
"In this modern era, you can quickly gather a lot of information on-line and also reach out to international networks," he said.
This is just so weird. These people aren't just terrorists. They are majorly messed up. They have severe mental problems.
The need to stop the “alleged” crap. We are going to get killed indirectly by the “alleged” main stream media.
The enemy within...
Terroris Abdul Kadir: "We are victims. Otherwise, this would have been covered today
on the front page of the New York Times, above the fold."
The Threat of "Homegrowns" ~~( Thoughts on the JFK Airport Bombing Plot)
you can see aerials here, pipeline routes, markings, its all here.
totally unprotected, but there really is now way to protect these lines 100% w/o taking the fight to the islamists.
http://cryptome.org/jfk-tanks/jfk-tanks.htm
http://cryptome.org/bkngas-eyeball.htm
Someone like this would have gone on a shooting spree the moment he realized his plan wouldn’t work.
He would have killed more people that way than by causing a self-contained fire from ruptured fuel lines.
He was such a nice neighbor - he kept his lawn nice and trimmed....
It’s like you can kill the man twice.
When this a$$ clown gets to prison, I’m sure his fellow inmates will show him the ropes (so to speak). They may not succeed in killing him twice, but I bet he’s going to wish he was dead quite a few times.
I brought jet fuel there once. Late 70’s, 2nd Mate on the SINCLAIR TEXAS.
No actually you're right. This man is a stellar-deranged Fruit Loop.
Comical, almost, but still very messed up and scary.
Don't see how. From the article
The counter-terrorism official said that although the plan "was not technically possible"
Repeat, the plan was not possible. It was a crackpot who,
Expected the informant to pull off the attack. Didn't have a plan, didn't have the equipment, just an idea. And he apparently was expecting the informant to carry out the plan. This one is just a tad more unbelievable than the pizza guy attacking a major military installation. I think our government truly believes that no citizen uses logic at all.
Are there threats? Perhaps. But this wasn't one of them. This guy sounds he flunked out of Nigerian scam school
He does understand Americans’ strange fixation with the Kennedy royalty, though. Maybe killing Kennedy twice seems like a worthy goal because suicide bombers sometimes say they wish they could die twice or more for Allah. Like dying twice is an honor.
His annual performance reviews would be interesting to read. Sucks to be a boss and have someone like that working for you... you almost wish they'd screw up so you can fire them.
I've often wondered at what point we would have intervened had we known about the 9/11 attacks in advance. The other night I saw two cleanly dressed swarthy fellows at a local restarant, same faces (in general) as the 9/11 attackers. At what point should any US Citizen intervene and ask, "What is your name?" or discretely request further investigation.
The line between civil liberties and domestic peace seems to be growing finer all the time.
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