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JFK airport terrorist plot thwarted

A terrorist plot to blow up the fuel lines that supply JFK airport in New York has been foiled by police, FBI, and other law enforcement agencies.

Described as "one of the most chilling plots imaginable," the arrests were reported by New York affiliate NewsChannel4's Jonathan Dienst, and detailed the three people who were arrested and one other was being sought Saturday in connection to a plot to blow up jet-fuel lines at John F. Kennedy International Airport, officials said.

Four people have been charged. Three suspects are in custody: Russell Defreitas, aka Muhammed, a Guyana national, Kareem Ibrihim and Abdul Kadir. Suspect Abdul Nur, a citizen of Guyana, is believed to be in Trinidad and is still at large.

CNN reports Defreitas is to be arrainged today in Brooklyn on terror conspiracy charges.

"To hit John F.Kennedy, like wow, the whole country will be in mourning, it's like killing him all over again," allegedly said on tape by Defreitas, reports CNN.

Defreitas is reportedly a former cargo worker at JFK who allegedly began to plot attacking the US last July or August. Defeitas sought help in carrying out a plan and unwittingly went to an FBI informant, who culled the information about their plot, reports CNN live.

CNN says the coalition of counter-terrorism law enforcement officials have been following the plot for a little less than one year; initiated in January of 2006.

Sources said the plot involved a plan to blow up a BuckEye jet-fuel pipeline at JFK setting off a potential massive explosion. BuckEye provides fuel to all three NYC-area airports.

CNN reports that the planning stages of the plot involved surveillance of JFK airport as well as scouting out US properties in Guyana for possible attacks. Aviation officials said there is no major threat to today's air travel since the plot was caught in the early developmental stages.

One law enforcement official said: "[There was] credible intent to commit violence but it was not operational."

Officials said the suspects never got hold of explosive devices.

Pat D'Amuro, a security analyst for CNN, says "we have known for some time that Al Quaeda has tried to use other methods to send terrorists into the United States, and other areas of the globe to gain access the United States."

"Terrorists know that by attacking the infrastructure they are going to have significant impact on the United States."

"Technology and background checks are going to have to be improved, to make sure people are who they say they are."

"There are third world countries now that are more advanced than the USA in issuing identifying cards to their citizens," said D'Amuro on CNN.

Yep, there is no war on terror.   ::) ::) ::) ::)

Fox news just reported that not only would this have affected the JFK airport but wouod have caused severe damage to residential neighborhoods in Queens.

 3 arrested in JFK pipeline terror plot

Four would-be terrorists hatched a plot to blow up Kennedy Airport and swaths of Queens by attacking fuel tanks and an underground pipeline - igniting a catastrophic explosion that would eclipse 9/11, authorities said yesterday.

One of the suspects boasted to a federal informant that "he had a vision that would make the World Trade Center attack seem small," according to the criminal complaint.

The ringleaders were identified as a four men from Guyana and Trinidad, and included a Guyanese politician and a former airport worker.

Three suspects have been arrested. One was busted in New York on Friday and was awaiting arraignment in Brooklyn federal court yesterday.

Investigators said the cabal - which had ties to Jamaat Al Muslimeen, an extremist Muslim group in Trinidad - had not yet bought explosives but posed a credible threat. They had taken video of the airport and obtained satellite photos, the complaint said.

"This was the real deal," said a source familiar with the alleged plot.

The group "was very familiar with the airport and how to access secure areas," another source said.

The alleged plotters were identified as Russell Defreitas, who is originally from Guyana and had worked at Kennedy; Trinidad national Kareem Ibrahim; Abdul Kadir, a former member of the Guyanese parliament, and Abdel Nur, also from Guyana.

The group's original plan was to crash an airplane into several other passenger jets on the ground at Kennedy "to create a catastrophic explosion," a source said.

But the suspects couldn't recruit enough co-conspirators and changed course, the source said.

They came up with a new plan: to set off explosions at the airport's fuel farm, a series of storage tanks, the sources said.

They also were targeting a massive jet-fuel pipeline that runs from Linden, N.J., through Staten Island, Brooklyn, Queens and to the airport.

They hoped an assault on the so-called Buckeye pipeline - which carries 8 million gallons of jet fuel and refined petroleum into the city every day - would kill thousands by causing explosions through residential sections of Queens.

At a meeting last year with an informant, Defreitas confided "he had a vision that would make the World Trade Center attack seem small," the complaint said.

Defreitas allegedly told the informant that Kennedy Airport, one of the busiest hubs in the world, was chosen because of its symbolic connection to the slain president.

"They \[Americans\] loved John F. Kennedy like he was the man. If you hit that, this city will be in mourning. It's like you can kill the man twice," he said, according to the complaint.

The suspects were under surveillance for a year before the three arrests made here and overseas.

"We had them on conspiracy long ago," a law enforcement source said, adding that the feds didn't move in more quickly because wanted to see whether the probe targets had ties to Al Qaeda.

Any links to established terror networks were unclear.

"There are a couple of shadowy figures in the background," a government source said. "Whether those Al Qaeda connections were real or not, we don't know."

Authorities decided to step in and round up the suspects because some of the plotters were expected to travel soon.

The investigation was conducted by the FBI, NYPD, Port Authority Police and U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

In a statement, the company that owns the Buckeye pipeline praised investigators for bringing the plot to light.

"We have been kept fully informed and apprised of this potential threat from the very beginning," said Roy Haase of the Buckeye Pipe Line Co. "We are of course very pleased that this threat has been thwarted and those responsible apprehended."

Trinidad holds 2 in alleged terror plot

By TONY FRASER, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 46 minutes ago

PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad - Two men allegedly involved in a plot to attack New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport were in custody in Trinidad and Tobago on Saturday and the police commissioner said authorities were scouring the Caribbean country for a third suspect still at large.

Trevor Paul, the top police official in the twin-island nation off Venezuela's coast, identified the arrested suspects as Abdul Kadir, 55, a Guyanese Muslim and former member of the South American nation's Parliament, and Kareem Ibrahim, a 56-year-old from Trinidad.

Both were arrested on U.S. warrants and are suspected of involvement in a plan to blow up a fuel line feeding the airport, Paul told a news conference.

Abdel Nur of Guyana was still being sought in Trinidad, U.S. officials said.

U.S. authorities allege Kadir, Ibrahim, Nur and another Muslim man, Russell Defreitas, planned to attack the airport, kill thousands and wreak economic havoc by blowing up a jet fuel artery that runs through residential neighborhoods. The plot never got beyond the planning stages, officials said.

Defreitas, an American citizen native to Guyana and a former JFK employee, was in custody in Brooklyn.

"The FBI did inform the Trinidad law enforcement authorities of the fact that three men were wanted in the U.S. on warrants in connection with a terrorist plot. We have been working with the FBI for some time, but this last request was made yesterday," Paul said.

Paul said the two suspects would likely be extradited to the U.S. after court hearings in Trinidad. He did not say when their first court appearance in Port-of-Spain would be.

U.S authorities said Kadir and Nur were longtime associates of a Trinidadian radical Muslim group, Jamaat al Muslimeen, which launched an unsuccessful rebellion in 1990 that left 24 dead.

"We understand that Kadir is linked to a major organization in Trinidad," Guyanese President Bharrat Jagdeo, who is in Port-of-Spain at a regional agriculture conference, told reporters. He would not disclose further details.

Kadir's wife, Isha Kadir, told The Associated Press that her husband, a Shiite Muslim, is innocent. She said her husband flew from Guyana to Trinidad on Thursday on his way to Venezuela, where he planned to pick up a travel visa to attend an Islamic religious conference in
Iran. Kadir was arrested at Trinidad's international airport on Friday after he had boarded a flight to Venezuela, Paul said.

"We have no interest in blowing up anything in the U.S," Kadir's wife said. "We have relatives in the U.S."

U.S. authorities alleged in court papers that the suspects hoped to gain support in the attack from Jamaat al Muslimeen and its longtime leader. They never managed to present the plan to the group's leader, Yasin Abu Bakr, and they never secured his support, the documents said.

Phone calls to the leader of Jamaat al Muslimeen went unanswered Saturday.

Ibrahim was also arrested on Friday in a cane farming town about 20 miles east of Port-of-Spain. Trinidadian authorities did not disclose more about that arrest.

Kadir served in Guyana's parliament until last year when it was disbanded before general elections in the former Dutch and British colony on the north coast of South America. Muslims, most of them Sunnis, make up about 9 percent of the Guyana's 770,000 population.

Kadir studied civil engineering at the University of Guyana and at the Trinidad campus of the University of the West Indies and has also served as mayor in Linden, a small city about 70 miles south of Georgetown, the Guyanese capital.

He also worked for years as a civil engineer in the state-owned bauxite company before leaving to set up his own building contractor business.

Kadir's wife said her husband knew Abdel Nur in Guyana in the 1980s but they were no longer in contact.

"We have not seen him for a long time and I would be surprised if my husband has any links with him still," she said in a phone interview from her home in Guyana.

Kadir was a friend and associate of an Iranian cleric, Muhammad Hassan Abrahemi, who was abducted, shot to death and left in a sand pit east of Georgetown in 2004.

He and his wife have three children, who have all studied religion in Iran, Isha Kadir said.

She said she suspects her husband's arrest is linked to two American Muslims who stayed with the family in Guyana for a week last month. She knew one only as Muhammed and did not know the other's name.

"I am now wondering if those Muslim brothers did not set us up," she said. "I can't say for sure but we have nothing to hide. We are not involved in anything."

She said she planned to travel to Trinidad to try to meet with her husband before he is extradited to the United States.

Trinidad holds 2 in alleged terror plot (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070603/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/trinidad_terrorism_plot;_ylt=Alfti1EfY_ID3lW2eJmI4vJvaA8F)