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Terrorists recruited in jails; N.J. lawmakers updated on security

Published in the Asbury Park Press 9/28/04
By TOM BALDWIN
GANNETT STATE BUREAU
TRENTON -- Groups with suspected al-Qaida links are successfully recruiting individuals not of Arab ancestry -- whites, blacks and Hispanics -- and there is a trend to recruit in the prison population, Attorney General Peter C. Harvey said yesterday.

Harvey made his remarks after testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee, where Harvey and others updated lawmakers on the state's domestic security preparedness three years after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

Al-Qaida is the name taken by followers of Osama bin Laden's group of Islamic militants behind the 9/11 attacks and suspected in a string of bombings thereafter, accusing the West of cooperating with undemocratic Arab regimes for the sake of oil.

At one point, state Sen. Robert J. Martin, R-Morris, asked Harvey how many al-Qaida loyalists may exist in New Jersey.

"There are persons in New Jersey who concern us," answered Harvey.

Afterward, Harvey refused to estimate how many such people there are. And he said they shared no common link such as language, ancestry or country of origin.

"That's a big mistake," Harvey said to the notion of suspecting a group on that basis.

"They are definitely recruiting whites," he said, adding later, "They have been pretty successful recruiting Caucasians, and African-Americans and Latinos."

"We have noticed there is an attempt to recruit inmates," he said in response to a questions about the state's prisons. He added later: "There are disgruntled people in America who want to express their anger through violence."

Representatives of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security did not respond to inquiries about how widespread al-Qaida recruitment had spread among U.S. citizens.

Safeguarding schools
Also yesterday, Sidney J. Caspersen, director of the state Office of Counter-Terrorism, warned that the Beslan, Russia, school siege, in which more than 320 hostages -- half of them children -- died is a model against which U.S. authorities must brace.

Caspersen said he had no evidence of this. But he holds suspicions, and he said his mandate is to always expect the worst, saying al-Qaida attackers prefer the element of catching a target off its guard.

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"We learned a lot from that," he said of the Beslan siege, which reports say was not an al-Qaida operation but the work of Chechnyan separatists.
Harvey said a Beslan-type attack is a concern in New Jersey, but he said that, unrelated to the siege, his office had sent warnings to school districts to employ a so-called "best practices" operating standards, especially as they apply to strangers in a school building.

During the hearings, Harvey, Caspersen and Col. Joseph R. "Rick" Fuentes, the superintendent of the New Jersey State Police, said New Jersey is ahead of many states' preparedness but that much needs to be done.

Harvey said the very Statehouse complex where he spoke was essentially not secure.

"You could park a truck right in front of this hearing room today and if it had significant number of explosives, all of us would be killed," Harvey said.

Fuentes described the hallmark of the State Police anti-terror efforts as "visibility and unpredictability."

Caspersen told the committee the Holland and Lincoln tunnels, the George Washington Bridge, and parts of the NJ Transit rail system have been monitored, presumably by al-Qaida operatives.

Information overload
Ron Riccio, a Seton Hall professor who sits on the state's Domestic Security Preparedness Task Force, said average citizens are numbed by so much data coming at them, and they do not know what to do beyond turning to radio and TV in a crisis.

Riccio recommended that state officials should give residents specific instructions on what to do if terrorists attack.

"I don't think the rank-and-file people in the state of New Jersey know what to do in that circumstance," he said.

"We can't standardize a response to a thousand different threats," replied Sen. Nicholas P. Scutari, D-Union.

Verizon New Jersey President Dennis Bone, who is also on the task force, later agreed with what some security experts fear: that cell phones offer easy access for terrorists to communicate because they are cheap and can be thrown away after a single call.

"Not that it's not monitored," Bone said of international calls, "but once it's in the trash, or at the bottom of Newark Bay, there is nothing you can do."