Six Islamic militants in plot to attack army base in US, says FBI

The group, which is not believed to have links to any foreign organisations, had amassed semi-automatic assault rifles, shotguns and handguns while trying to acquire the more sophisticated weaponry, federal authorities said.

The men, aged 22 to 28, included three brothers born in the former Yugoslavia who ran a roofing business. One Jordanian-born suspect was a Philadelphia taxi driver and a Turkish-born man worked as a convenience store clerk.

The suspects conducted surveillance of Fort Dix and other US military installations in New Jersey, Delaware and Pennsylvania, plotting attacks inspired by an international call for holy war against the West, officials said.

"This was a serious plot put together by people who were intent on harming Americans," Christopher Christie, a US attorney, said.

"We're very gratified federal law enforcement was able to catch these people before they acted and took innocent life."

One suspect reportedly spoke of using rocket-propelled grenades to kill at least 100 soldiers at a time in an attack on Fort Dix in New Jersey, according to court documents.

"If you want to do anything here, there is Fort Dix and, I don't want to exaggerate, and I assure you that you can hit an American base very easily," Mohamad Ibrahim Shnewer said in a conversation last August that was secretly recorded by a government informant, according to the criminal complaint against him.

Tony Snow , the White House spokesman, said on Tuesday there is "no direct evidence" that the men have ties to international terrorism.

In court documents, prosecutors said the suspects first came to the attention of authorities in January 2006 when a shopkeeper alerted the FBI about a "disturbing" video he had been asked to copy on to a DVD.

The video showed ten men in their early twenties "shooting assault weapons at a firing range ... while calling for jihad and shouting in Arabic "Allah Akbar" (God is great)," the complaint said. Six of the ten were identified as those arrested in the plot.

"What concerns us is, obviously, they began conducting surveillance and weapons training in the woods and were discussing killing large numbers of soldiers," Dean Boyd, a spokesman for the US Justice Department said.

Mr Christie said one of the suspects worked at a restaurant, Super Mario's Pizza, in Cookstown, close to Fort Dix, and delivered pizzas to the base, using that opportunity to scout out a possible attack.

The six appeared in federal court in the town of Camden, New Jersey, last night on charges of conspiracy to kill US servicemen, said Michael Drewniak, a spokesman for the US Attorney's Office in New Jersey. They were arrested on Monday trying to buy automatic weapons from an FBI informant.

The suspects were identified as Eljvir, Dritan and Shain Duka, three Yugoslav-born brothers who were illegal aliens; Turkish-born US resident Serdar Tatar; Yugoslav-born US resident Agron Abdullahu; and Mohamad Shnewer, a US citizen born in Jordan.

Officials said four of the men were born in the former Yugoslavia, one in Jordan and one in Turkey.

All had lived in the US for years. Three were in the US illegally; two had green cards allowing them to stay in this country permanently; the other is a US citizen.

"My intent is to hit a heavy concentration of American soldiers, light up four or five Humvees full of soldiers," Christie quoted one of the suspects as saying.

They also discussed attacking two US warships when they docked in Philadelphia and staging an attack on the annual Army-Navy college football game, prosecutors said.

Five of the men lived in Cherry Hill, a Philadelphia suburb about 20 miles from Fort Dix.

US Magistrate Judge Joel Schneider ordered the men detained to face charges of plotting to kill military personnel and weapons possession. Each wore a prison jumpsuit and was shackled at the ankles.

Sixteen family members including women wearing headscarves sat in the public benches. Some wept quietly.

A separate hearing to determine whether the suspects would be granted bail was set for Friday.

"They were planning an attack on Fort Dix in which they would kill as many soldiers as possible," Mr Drewniak said.

A law enforcement official said the attack was stopped in the planning stages. The men also allegedly conducted surveillance at other nearby military institutions, including Fort Monmouth, a US army installation, the official said.

By March 2006, the group had been infiltrated by an informant who developed a relationship with Shnewer, according to court documents.

The informant secretly recorded meetings in August 2006 in which Shnewer said that he and the other suspects were part of a group planning to attack a US military base, according to the complaint.

Shnewer named Fort Dix and a nearby navy base, explaining that the group "could utilise six or seven jihadists to attack and kill at least one hundred soldiers by using rocket-propelled grenades" or other weapons. The navy base was not named in the complaint.

The description of the suspects as "Islamic militants" renewed fears in New Jersey's Muslim community. Hundreds of Muslim men from New Jersey the area were rounded up and detained by authorities in the months following the 2001 attacks, but none was connected to that plot.

IRAQ TRAINING GROUND

NEW Jersey's Fort Dix is primarily a training centre for members of the US National Guard, reservists who are increasingly fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan as regular forces feel the strain of constant rotation.

Many reservists there are currently training for just such a deployment, with courses on how to spot and deal with Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), as well as convoy driving, cultural awareness and language training.

Despite widespread fears following 9/11, comparatively few plots by Islamic militants against US mainland targets have been uncovered in the past few years, suggesting the Department of Homeland Security has been largely successful in its task.