Another al-FBI-duh Plot

Four men were arrested on charges linked with planning attacks against a Jewish synagogue and US warplanes based at a New York military base, prosecutors said.

The men, who according to a US congressman were all born in the United States, were arrested “on charges arising from a plot to detonate explosives near a synagogue in the Riverdale section of the Bronx, New York,” according to the complaint filed at a White Plains, New York federal court.

The group, residing in New York, where Al-Qaeda extremists with hijacked commercial airliners destroyed the World Trade Center towers on September 11, 2001, also “planned to shoot down military planes located at the New York Air National Guard Base at Stewart Airport in Newburgh, New York, with Stinger surface-to-air guided missiles,” officials said.

Gee, I wonder if an FBI informant played any role in this plot...

The suspects — identified as James Cromitie, also known as Abdul Rahman; David Williams, also known as Daoud or simply DL; Onta Williams, also known as Hamza; and Laguerre Payen, also known as Amin and Almondo — had been tracked for over a year, officials said.

In the major part of the plan, to obtain weapons for the attack, the defendants dealt with an FBI informant who provided the group “with an inactive missile and inert explosives.”

D'oh!

But there's more--

... it's not clear whether these men would have carried out any terror plot without encouragement and material support from an FBI informant. The New York Times reports that "a federal law enforcement official described the plot as "aspirational" -- meaning that the suspects wanted to do something but had no weapons or explosives."

Indeed, the complaint paints a picture of a plot in which the FBI informant played a central role from the start. The informant met Cromitie, the apparent ringleader of the plot, last June at a Newburgh mosque. Cromitie told the informant that his parents had lived in Afghanistan, that he was upset about the US killing Muslims in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and that he would like to do "something to America." Soon after, the informant falsely told Cromitie that he (the informant) was a member of the Pakistan-based terror group Jaish-e-Mohammed. Cromitie said he too would like to join, in order to "do Jihad."

From there, the plot began to slowly take shape, with the informant playing a central role throughout. The informant helped to procure fake homemade bombs, and accompanied the men in obtaining a surface-to-air guided missile system and three IEDs. The informant also accompanied the men in buying handguns for use in the plot.

Group leader Cromitie a "pothead".

More on the group here. About the FBI Informant and the summary:

The Informant
- An upstate motel owner, identified by the New York Post as Shahed Hussain, 52, he became a government informant in 2002, after he was busted for helping immigrants cheat on drivers tests while working as a DMV translator. He was hoping to win leniency in his sentencing and avoid being deported to Pakistan. (It's unclear how the Post got Hussain's name. A spokeswoman for the US attorney's office told TPMmuckraker it was not released by the government).
- He started showing up at the Newburgh mosque, where all four men attended services, around 2007. An imam at the mosque said he invited other worshipers out for meals, and talked about Jihad. "There was just something fishy about him," said the imam, saying that some members "believed he was a government agent."
- The imam also said he had been told that Hussain offered at least one member of the congregation a substantial amount of money to join his "team."
- The owner of a local restaurant (either Denny's or Danny's -- reports differ) where the Newburgh Four would regularly eat rice and beans said that a few months ago, a fifth man starting showing up. He appeared to be of South Asian descent and would usually pay for the meal. The restaurant owner said he thought the man was the boss.
- This isn't his first sting operation. A few years ago, he posed as an arms dealer who had sold a shoulder-launched missile to be used to kill a Pakistani envoy. Two Albany men, Mohammed Hossain and Yassin Aref, helped him launder money from the supposed sale, and were convicted and sentenced to fifteen years in prison.

It's easy to laugh at this gang of goons -- and we've done our share of that. But, frankly, it's also hard not to feel some compassion for what looks like a group of struggling, credulous, under-educated men, existing on the fringes of society, who lacked the intelligence or willpower to avoid getting taken in by a government informant anxious to mitigate his own situation, and by their own vague understanding of radical Islam and the hole it might fill in their lives.

And as for what this might say about the threat of home-grown terror, it's almost reassuring that the biggest terror bust we've seen in a while has this sad-sack group at his center.