When U.S. Attorney Roslynn Mauskopf described the alleged terror plot to blow up Kennedy Airport as "one of the most chilling plots imaginable," which might have caused "unthinkable" devastation, one law enforcement official said he cringed.
The plot, he knew, was never operational. The public had never been at risk. And the notion of blowing up the airport, let alone the borough of Queens, by exploding a fuel tank was in all likelihood a technical impossibility.
And now, with a portrait emerging of alleged mastermind Russell Defreitas as hapless and episodically homeless, and of co-conspirator Abdel Nur as a drug addict, Mauskopf's initial characterizations seem more questionable -- some go so far as to say hyped.
"I think her comments were over the top," said Michael Greenberger, director of the Center for Health and Homeland Security at the University of Maryland. "It was a totally overstated characterization that doesn't comport with the facts."
Greenberger said he has no argument with police pursuing and stopping the alleged plotters.
"I think they were correct to take this seriously," he said. "... But there's a pattern here of Justice Department attorneys overstating what they have. I think they feel under tremendous pressure to vindicate the elaborate counterterrorism structure they've created since 9/11, including the Patriot Act."
...
Terrorism expert Peter Bergen said he doesn't consider the airport plot or most of the recent homegrown cases serious threats but believes law enforcement officials are right to pursue them.
"Obviously they're talking about stuff," he said. "But did they have the capabilities or training to do it? The answer is obviously not. It seems to me the reason the London plot worked is these guys had gone to an al-Qaida training camp. ... To become an effective terrorist, generally you have to go to a training camp. Timothy McVeigh was an effective terrorist because he could draw on his years of military background."
In this case, the alleged plotters had no money and never succeeded in hooking up with the head of an Islamist group in Trinidad called Jamaat al Muslimeen, according to the criminal complaint. While alleged mastermind Defreitas told the FBI informant that he learned to make bombs in Guyana, there is no other indication of technical expertise. Friends say he supported himself by selling incense on street corners and collecting welfare.
And again:
The Fort Dix Six?
Well, seems they made a jihad training film featuring themselves. But they couldn't figure out how to burn it to a DVD. So they went to a Circuit City and asked the clerk on duty if he could do it for them.
And let's not forget the seven people arrested for conspiring to blow up the Sears Tower:
[T]he more we learn, the less this crew looks like they could have toppled a tree house, let alone the Sears Tower.
...
[T]he group never got their hands on any real weapons. In fact, they apparently trained by shooting paintball guns in the woods. During their raid of the group's Temple, a windowless warehouse, FBI agents found only one knife and a blackjack.
How did the group show up on the FBI's radar? It's unclear, but from the Miami Herald's reporting of the hearing, it sounds like the group's leader, Narseal Batiste, went down to his local 7-11 to "obtain financial and military support." I'm not kidding.
He eventually got a lot of promises from another FBI informant for guns, boots and $50,000 in cash. But the lawyer for one of Batiste's followers says Batiste, who used to "roam the streets" in a bathrobe, was just scamming the informant because he was hard up for money.
I'm glad that we're safe from people who are utterly incompetent.
As Josh Marshall opines,
[I]t's hard to know whether to feel reassured that if Islamic terrorism is catching on in the US that it's only doing so among the deeply stupid or that these are the only ones our guys can catch.
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