FBI Uncovers JFK Airport Terror Plot (updated)
By James Gordon Meek
The FBI in New York City is set to announce by 1 p.m. Eastern the arrests of several suspects arrested in the Caribbean, who were allegedly plotting to blow up John F. Kennedy Airport in New York. A high-level source said they aimed to light up fuel farms at the airport. The FBI has followed the suspects for at least a year.
Co-Editor's Note: You can download the complaint from here (Acrobat), and you can see the entire FBI press conference from today through WCBS TV in New York City. I received the following information about the group in question in this case from a former NYPD official now working for a U.S. government agency - note also this ABC News story about fears of links from the suspects "to one of the most wanted al Qaeda leaders, Adnan Shukrijumah, known to have operated out of Guyana and Trinidad":
Jamaat-al-Muslimeen (JAM) is a Trinidad & Tobago homegrown political/Muslim organization that was involved in a bloody (by Caribbean standards) coup attempt in 1990 that resulted in the death of 19 people. The leader, Abu Bakr, is still in T&T and is somewhat of a hot potato politically. He is known to spew some wild allegations and poses more of a threat to T&T via kidnappings and robberies than terrorist acts. He once claimed to have a nuclear device on the north end of T&T. Bakr (whose real name escapes me now) still appears in T&T news trying to enter the political arena. He has been linked to several deaths and kidnappings of former JAM members, some of whom have split from JAM and formed a spin off movement against Abu Bakr.See also this outstanding story on Shukrijumah, published in the LA Times last year and made available to us with permission to distribute (Andrew Cochran).Many JAM members fled to Brooklyn in 1990 and started their own narcotics organizations when the coup failed. Obviously their adherence to Islam did not outweigh their greed. I always thought they were more of a gang then a dedicated extremist organization. Despite what maybe stated in today's news, they do not have obvious direct links to al-Qeada. The only link maybe Adnan El-Shukri-Jumah, al-Qaeda's operative who had distinct links to T&T and Guyana and may have been assisted by JAM members.
Guyana and Haiti have a significant extremist element with a particular Haitian Muslim having links to an Iranian backed cleric linked to the Tri-border area in South America.
JAM is not al-Qaeda, but should be watched closely, which the NY-JTTF does.