It is almost out of a Clancy novel really.  6 men were planning to kill as many soldiers at Fort Dix as they could, but thansk to an anonymous tip, the ring of terrorists was busted:

6 arrested in plot to kill soldiers at Fort Dix

The six men charged with plotting the slaughter of U.S. soldiers in an armed assault on Fort Dix were held without bail this afternoon during an initial appearance in federal court in Camden.

The men, identified by authorities as homegrown Islamic terrorists inspired by Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda network, each spent about 10 minutes before a judge in U.S. District Court, saying they understood the charges against them.

In a press briefing afterward, U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie said that had the men managed to carry out their plan, “It could have been a disaster.”

“These people were ready for martyrdom,” Christie said. “Once they got on to that base and started to shoot, everyone was in danger.”

Added J.P. Weis, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Philadelphia office, “Today we dodged a bullet.”

“These homegrown terrorists can prove to be as dangerous as any known group,” Weis said.

Federal agents, backed by state police, arrested the men last night after two of the suspects met a confidential informant in Cherry Hill to buy AK-47 and M16 automatic machine guns, authorities said. The men intended to “kill as many soldiers as possible,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.

The alleged plot included conducting surveillance of the Army base and purchasing multiple firearms, including assault weapons, hand guns, shotguns and semi-automatic weapons, according to a federal complaint.

Some of the would-be attackers have been living illegally in the United States, while others are legal immigrants, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Four are ethnic Albanians, one was born in Turkey, and a sixth was born in Jordan.

Late reports say 3 were illegal aliens, 2 were legal aliens and one was a citizen.  While this is not necessarily an indictment against legal immigrants, most of whom are law abiding, it is a warning fo the severity of the illegal immigrant issues.

While under federal surveillance, the men also watched a video in which a U.S. Marine lost his arm in an explosion.

“The room burst out into laughter,” Christie said. “These are the type of people we were dealing with.”

The men had scouted out Fort Monmouth, Dover Air Force Base, Lakehurst Naval Air Station and the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard before settling on Fort Dix, a base that is used to mobilize troops to Iraq, according to the complaint.

One of the suspects, Tatar, had regular access to secure areas of the facility through his job as a deliveryman for his father’s pizzeria in Cookstown, not far from the gates of McGuire Air Force Base, which adjoins Fort Dix. Tatar, the complaint said, knew Fort Dix like the palm of his hand.”

Yea, the fact is that pizza delivery has always been a serious hole in base security.  Seriously, we discussed this in the 90’s at Travis.

The men had videotaped their practice sessions in Pennsylvania, according to the complaint. That videotape, in which they fired assault weapons and railed against America, led to their arrests.

They made the mistake of bringing it to a video store, seeking to get a copy burned to a DVD, Christie said. A store clerk who later watched the tape called the FBI, which began immediately investigating.

Here is the money quote:

‘This is definitely a reminder that we are at war,” said Carolee Nisbet, a Fort Dix spokeswoman.

Indeed.

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