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| Two men arrested at US airport on terror charges | |||
| 2010-06-07 | |||
| [Al Arabiya Latest] Two men arrested at John F Kennedy airport in New York were charged Sunday with conspiracy to kill Americans outside the country, U.S. justice officials said. Mohamed Mahmood Alessa, 20, and Carlos Eduardo Almonte, 26, both from New Jersey,
During a lengthy investigation, an NYPD undercover officer recorded conversations with the men in which they spoke about jihad against Americans. "I leave this time. God willing, I never come back," authorities say Alessa told the officer last year. "Only way I would come back here is if I was in the land of jihad and the leader ordered me to come back here and do something here. Ah, I love that." Investigators "remain concerned that once they reach their foreign destinations, they may be redirected against targets back home, as we've seen in the past," New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said in a statement. "We are also concerned that should they remain undetected and fail in their foreign aspirations that they might strike domestically, as was discussed as a possibility in this case." Alessa, of North Bergen, New Jersey, and Almonte, of Elmwood Park, New Jersey, both American citizens,
Teams of state and federal law enforcement agents who have been investigating Alessa and Almonte since 2006 took them into custody, authorities said. They are scheduled to appear Monday in federal court in Newark. The two men had planned their trip to Somalia for several months, saving thousands of dollars, undergoing tactical training and test runs at paintball fields to condition themselves physically, and acquiring equipment and clothing they could use when they joined al-Shabab in Somalia, officials said. Both had bragged about wanting to wage holy war against the United States both at home and internationally, according to a criminal complaint. Officials said the two men were not planning an imminent attack in the New York-New Jersey area. Somalia has welcomed the arrest of two New Jersey men who allegedly planned to join al-Shabab. "Foreign terrorists here are an obstacle to lasting peace in Somalia. So we welcome the move and we are calling on all governments to take such steps against al-Shabab and all terrorists at large," said Sheik Abdirisaq Mohamed Qaylow, a spokesman for the Ministry of Information.
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| Posted by:Fred |