Portable Planet

Six men have been arrested and charged with plotting to attack U.S. soldiers at the Fort Dix Army base in the northeastern state of New Jersey.

The men appeared Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Camden, New Jersey, to face charges of conspiracy to kill U.S. servicemen. Authorities say they were planning to enter the army base and kill as many soldiers as possible using automatic weapons.

At a news conference Tuesday, U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie said there is no evidence that the six men were directly connected to any international terrorist group, but he believes they were inspired by international terrorist and jihadist groups. Christie said he believes the men had their own cell, and that it represents a new kind of terrorism. He said they were “extremists.”

A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s office said earlier four of the suspects were born in the former Yugoslavia, one in Jordan and one in Turkey. He said most of the suspects had been in the United States for a long time, and that some were U.S. citizens and some were illegal immigrants.

Police arrested the men late Monday after they tried to buy automatic weapons from a gunseller who was secretly working with federal authorities. It was a joint federal and local investigation.

Christie said the FBI had been investigating the group for 16 months after a citizen gave them information. Christie said the group had videotaped their practice sessions, where they were shouting jihadist slogans and shooting assault weapons, and brought the video to a retail store to get it converted to a DVD. A store employee alerted the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and officials began investigating them.

The U.S. Attorney praised the store clerk and all the law enforcement officers involved in the case for preventing a serious and deadly attack.

Christie said one of the suspects knew the Fort Dix base well, because he had often delivered pizzas there.

Source: VOA