4 arrested in plot to bomb NYC targets
Authorities: Suspects were under heavy surveillance, dealt with informant
NBC News and news services
updated 4:28 a.m. CT, Thurs., May 21, 2009
NEW YORK - The FBI arrested four men Wednesday in what authorities called a plot to detonate a bomb outside a Jewish temple and to shoot military planes with guided missiles.

Authorities said the four men have long been under investigation and there was little danger they could actually have carried out their plan, NBC News' Pete Williams reported.

James Cromitie, David Williams, Onta Williams and Laguerre Payen, all of Newburgh, N.Y., about 70 miles north of New York City, were charged with conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction within the United States and conspiracy to acquire and use anti-aircraft missiles, the U.S. attorney's office said.

The men, described as Black Muslims, had planned to detonate a car with plastic explosives outside a temple in the Bronx neighborhood of Riverdale and to shoot military planes at the New York Air National Guard base at Stewart Airport in Newburgh with Stinger surface-to-air guided missiles, authorities said.

The defendants planned to "destroy a synagogue and a Jewish community center with C-4 plastic explosives," Acting U.S. Attorney Lev L. Dassin said.

The religious targets were the Riverdale Temple, founded in 1947, and the Riverdale Jewish Center, authorities said.

Defendants dealt with informant
In their efforts to acquire weapons, the defendants dealt with an informant acting under law enforcement supervision, authorities said. The FBI and other agencies monitored the men and provided an inactive missile and inert C-4 to the informant for the defendants, a federal complaint said.

The investigation had been under way for about a year.

"They never got anywhere close to being able to do anything," one official told NBC News. "Still, it's good to have guys like this off the street."

In June 2008, the informant met Cromitie in Newburgh and Cromitie complained that his parents had lived in Afghanistan and he was upset about the war there and that many Muslim people were being killed in Afghanistan and Pakistan by U.S. military forces, officials said.

Cromitie also expressed an interest in doing "something to America," they said in the complaint.

In October 2008, the informant began meeting with the defendants at a Newburgh house equipped with concealed video and audio equipment, the complaint said.

Beginning in April 2009, the four men selected the synagogue and the community center they intended to hit, it said. They also conducted surveillance of military planes at the Air National Guard Base, it said.

Rep. Peter King, the senior Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee, was briefed on the case following the arrests.

"This was a long, well-planned investigation, and it shows how real the threat is from homegrown terrorists," said King, of New York.

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said if there can be any good news out of this case it's that "the group was relatively unsophisticated, penetrated early and not connected to any outside group."

Due in court Thursday
The defendants, all arrested in New York City, were expected to appear in federal court in suburban White Plains on Thursday.

They were jailed Wednesday night and couldn't be contacted for comment. The FBI didn't immediately return a telephone message Wednesday night seeking information on whether the men had lawyers.

Two years ago, two Muslims pleaded guilty to plotting to attack synagogues in Los Angeles. But officials said that they knew of no connection between those arrests and this latest plot in New York.


NBC News' Pete Williams and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

youngblood wrote:Frazzled, I didn't take you for the MSNBC type. I was thinking more Washington Post.

Frazzled wrote:Can't stop the signal, Mal.

sexiest_hero wrote:My girlfriend has had a lot of contact with Muslims in her various jobs and she has explained that the mainstream Arabic Muslims do not really like the black Muslim movement. They especially do not have any love for the Nation of Islam. The Arabic Muslims view it as a bastardization of their religion.

I'm not so sure about that. Just look at the massive in-roads they have mad into Africa and all the way to Ethiopia and Somalia. Sunni and Shiite Muslims belive each other to be wrong, but like thier Jewish and Christan counterparts can and have pulled together for a common cause.

Remember there is a difference between the Nation of Islam (the guys who sell bean pies) and your ordinary Black muslim. One is a 1970 style African American activist. they other can be from over 50 different countries. One of the four were from Trinidad. 2 of the others had roots in the middle east.

"In June 2008, the informant met Cromitie in Newburgh and Cromitie complained that his parents had lived in Afghanistan and he was upset about the war there and that many Muslim people were being killed in Afghanistan and Pakistan by U.S. military forces, officials said."

Please check your facts before makingsuch statements. The majority of Black muslims are not from the Nation of Islam or even The USA. Lumping together all arabs(and a good deal of Persians) and all the sects of Islam was a huge costly mistake. Let's try to avoid it again, shall we.