Authorities in the United States are hunting for a fourth man in the alleged plot to explode jet-fuel supply tanks under New York’s John F Kennedy international airport, raising fears of a new front for al-Qaeda and its affiliates in the Caribbean.
Three plotters, including a former cargo handler and a former MP from Guyana, were being held in Trinidad and Brooklyn, following what US authorities said was extensive surveillance over 18 months.
The fourth, named as Abdel Nur, was believed to be in Trinidad, the FBI said on Sunday, and two of the three charged were arrested in Trinidad. Officials said all four alleged plotters were Muslim.
The arrests at the weekend came weeks after the authorities disrupted a cell allegedly planning an attack on soldiers at Fort Dix, New Jersey, focusing the attention of the FBI on home-grown terrorists.
The FBI had been tracking the JFK airport four since January 2006, officials said; each appeared to have acted on their own initiative in the plot, which they dubbed Chicken Farm. They had been inspired by the ”extremist vision of Islam propagated by al-Qaeda”, it was said.
John Miller, the FBI’s assistant director of public affairs, told ABC television on Sunday: ”When you are looking at inspired-through-the-internet, home-grown extremists, they can pop up anywhere. You have to focus in a 360-degree radius every moment of every day.”
His remarks were echoed by comments from New York’s police commissioner, Ray Kelly, who described one of the alleged plotters, Russell DeFreitas (63) US citizen of Guyanese origin, as a ”self-radicalised New Yorker”. DeFreitas appeared before a magistrate in Brooklyn on Saturday.
JFK airport handles 1 000 flights a day, but officials say it was never in imminent danger because the claimed plot was in a preliminary state. They had no detailed plans, no finances and no explosives.
However, DeFreitas and his accomplices are accused of trying to inflict maximum psychological damage on the US, according to court evidence.
He worked as an airport cargo handler in the early 1990s. The FBI said he was taped saying: ”To hit John F Kennedy [airport], wow … if you hit that, this whole country will be in mourning. It’s like you can kill the man twice.” He is alleged to have boasted the plot would be more devastating than the 2001 World Trade Centre attacks. ”Even the twin towers can’t touch it,” he allegedly said. The plotters also allegedly had a plan to blow up a 64km pipeline runnning from New Jersey through Staten Island and the borough of Queens to the airport.
Abdul Kadir (55) a former Guyanese MP, was arrested in Trinidad on Friday. He had been on a flight to Venezuela ordered to return to Trinidad. US authorities are seeking his extradition, along with that of Kareem Ibrahim (56) also arrested in Trinidad. The three in custody are accused of conducting extensive surveillance of the airport, using satellite images, photos and videos. They allegedly visited Guyana and Trinidad to forge links with Jamaat al-Muslimeen, a group made up largely of black converts to Islam; it has declined in influence since the 1990 coup, and officials in Trinidad told the Associated Press it had more to do with rackets than causes. – Guardian Unlimited Â