6 Arrested in Plot to
Attack Fort Dix
By CHRISTINE HAUSER
and ANAHAD O’CONNOR, NYTimes on the Web, May 8, 2007
Six people have been arrested in a
plot to fire grenades and kill scores of soldiers at a New Jersey Army
installation, the United States attorney’s office in New Jersey said at a news
conference today. Four of them were born in the former Yugoslavia, one was
born in Turkey and one in Jordan, said a spokesman for the office, Greg Reinert.
“Allegedly they wanted to kill as many of the soldiers at Fort Dix as they
could,” Mr. Reinert said.
A criminal complaint filed in United States District Court on Monday, said one
of the defendants, Dritan Duka, conspired with four others “to kill officers and
employees of agencies in the executive branch” of the government. It said
that Mr. Duka, who was also known by other names, carried out several actions
from Jan. 3, 2006, to about May 7 this year in Camden, Burlington and Monmouth
counties in New Jersey, including firearms training, collecting weapons and
viewing terrorist training videos.
The six men planned to purchase rocket-propelled grenade launchers then use them
to fire at Humvees at Fort Dix and “light the whole place up,” Chris Christie,
the United States attorney in New Jersey, said today. The men had
apparently looked at a number of military installations in the Northeast but
decided on Fort Dix because they thought it would allow them to kill the
greatest number of soldiers and to make a clean escape, officials said.
One of the men had also gained access to the grounds of the base as a pizza
delivery man and claimed to be familiar with the layout, Mr. Christie said.
“Terrorist attacks are not always going to be on the grand scale of September
11th,” Mr. Christie said. “But keep in mind that terrorist attacks are
about creating terror, and an attack on an American military institution in our
country clearly would have created the type of terror that people like these who
believe in Jihad want to perpetrate on American citizens.” He added, “We
believe this attack has now been completely defused.”
Mr. Duka, and two others, Eljvir Duka and Shain Duka — all three of whom are
brothers — are in the United States illegally, Mr. Christie said.
He said that the three men and the others, named as Mohamad Shnewer, Serdar
Tatar and Agron Abdullahu, were identified from a videotape that the F.B.I
described as firing assault weapons in a “militia-like style while calling for
jihad and shouting Allah Akbar (God is Great).” Mr. Christie said the men
made the mistake of taking the tape to a local video store and requesting that
it be dubbed to DVD. A clerk who watched the tape called the local police, who
alerted the F.B.I.
The arrests were made on Monday night in Cherry Hill, N.J., by F.B.I. and
Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, law enforcement officials said.
“We do not have any evidence at this time that they are connected directly to
any other international terrorist movement around the world,” Mr. Christie said.
“But clearly they used the Internet to obtain this jihadist material, which they
used as both educational and inspirational for their cause.”
The complaint included an affidavit from John J. Ryan, a special agent with the
F.B.I., which said that a cooperating witness infiltrated the group and last
year recorded some of their conversations. During one of those meetings,
the witness recorded Mr. Shnewer as saying that he, Mr. Tatar, Mr. Duka, Eljvir
Duka and Shain Duka were part of a group that was planning to attack a United
States military base, and specifically mentioned Fort Dix. At other
meetings they watched videos of American soldiers being attacked overseas and
footage of Osama bin Laden, officials said.
“During one meeting they watched the blowing off of the arm of a United States
marine and the room burst out into laughter,” Mr. Christie said. “These
are the types of people we are dealing with.”
In the complaint, Mr. Shnewer was quoted as saying that they could kill “at
least 100 soldiers” using rocket-propelled grenades and other weapons, and that
the witness was urged to help lead the attack because he had prior experience in
the Egyptian military. They would use a map procured by Mr. Tatar, who
used to deliver pizza there, the affidavit said, and the attack would begin with
a strike that would cause a power outage.
“They wanted to do this to make it easier for them to kill as many American
soldiers as possible,” Mr. Christie said today. Mr. Shnewer also conducted
surveillance of other facilities, including the Army base at Fort Monmouth,
N.J.; the Dover Air Base in Delaware, and the Coast Guard building in
Philadelphia, officials said. Dritan Duka, Eljvir Duka and Shain Duka collected
weapons including handguns, shotguns and semi-automatic assault weapons, and
trained on firearms in the Poconos region of Pennsylvania. The three men
and Mr. Shnewer reviewed terrorist training videos. In addition, he and
Dritan Duka ordered AK-47 machine guns. Another witness recorded a
conversation in which Mr. Tatar was said to have wanted to join the Army so he
could kill American soldiers from the “inside,” the statement said.
All the while, as the men made trips to the Poconos and trained and planned for
the attacks, they had no idea they were under surveillance, Mr. Christie said.
The three Duka men and another man lived in Cherry Hill; one in Philadelphia and
one in Williamstown, N.J.
Fort Dix, a 30,000-acre base named after a Civil War general, has for
generations been the first stop for American soldiers heading off to war.
It was used to prepare active-duty soldiers during World War I and II and the
war in Vietnam, and more recently has become a training ground for reservists
and National Guard units being deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan.
In 1999, during the Kosovo conflict, Fort Dix was used as part of a humanitarian
mission to shelter thousands of displaced refugees. More than 3,000 ethnic
Albanians were housed at the base, where they were given sponsors, language and
career training, and other assistance. Many of the refugees were Muslims
from the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia who went on to settle in the area
around the base.
Since 2001, the base, which is used by about 13,000 people each day — among them
3,000 soldiers — has been closed to the public.
The White House spokesman, Tony Snow, said this morning that there was no direct
evidence of a foreign terrorist operation but that their preparation, weapons
training and statements warranted a strong response.
Law enforcement officials in New York City said that there were no targets in
the city and that none of the suspects was from New York City.
People at several mosques near Cherry Hill did not recognize the names of the
defendants, and said there was no mosque in Cherry Hill but that one is being
built that will serve an Indian Muslim sect.
Another mosque in the area, which opened in Voorhees last September, serves
Pakistani, Indian and Arab Muslims as well as African-Americans.
Zia Rahman, 60, the managing director and trustee of the Muslim American
Community Association, which built the mosque in Voorhees, said the news today,
“Makes me feel terrible.”
“This is not what our religion teaches us,” he added. “These people claim
to be Muslims, but I don’t know how they can be. There’s nothing in Islam
that tells us to do something like this. Islam is religion of peace, not
of violence and this goes against the grain of our religion.”
The Jewish-Christian-Muslim Dialogue of Southern New Jersey issued a statement
condemning the planned attacks.
“We, Christians, Muslims and Jews, believe that anyone who would seek to attack
or kill innocents in the name of their faith violates the values and beliefs of
that faith,” the statement said.
“We, ‘Children of Abraham,’ seek peace for all; we categorically condemn ethnic
and religious bigotry and stereotyping, or the use of violence for religious or
political ends, by the misuse of any religious faith.”
David Kocieniewski, Andrea Elliott and Cara Buckley
contributed reporting.
|
