The Bronx Plot and Informants

By The Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT)

Just when threats of terrorism had seemingly disappeared from the radar screen, Americans woke up Thursday morning to hear the news about four radical Muslims who plotted to bomb two synagogues in New York and shoot down a military plane using a Stinger missile. Fortunately, the FBI had infiltrated the plotters from the very beginning with a confidential informant who learned of the plan from an Afghan-born Muslim.

Prosecutors say the suspects obtained what they believed was a live Stinger missile and three improvised explosive devices with C-4 explosive. "While the weapons provided to the defendants by the cooperating witness were fake, the defendants thought they were absolutely real," said acting United States attorney Lev Dassin in a prepared statement.

There are several lessons that the U.S. government and public should finally learn from this plot.

The first is that the threat of home-grown terrorism is very real. The arrests come on the heels of convictions in a plot that targeted Fort Dix in New Jersey and one that sought to establish a jihadi training camp in Oregon.

All three cases ended without anyone being hurt—with the assistance of FBI informants. In Fort Dix, the defendants were arrested as they met with the informant to buy M-16 and AK-47 rifles to use in their planned attack.

As acting United States Attorney Ralph J. Marra Jr. said after the verdict: "The word should go out to any other would-be terrorists of the homegrown variety that the United States will find you, infiltrate your group, prosecute you and send you to a federal prison for a very long time."

Despite this record of success, protests and press conferences have been held by "mainstream" Islamic groups in California, Detroit, Chicago, and elsewhere during the past few months bitterly protesting the FBI's use of an informant in a California mosque. In that case, an FBI agent testified under oath that Ahmadullah Niazi had been trying to recruit jihadists and had disseminated al Qaeda and virulent and violent anti-American recordings. He allegedly exhorted the informant to carry out jihad, praised Osama bin Laden as an angel, and even promised to send the informant overseas to get terrorist training to carry out attacks here in the United States.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations and the Muslim Public Affairs Council have jumped on the informant's role, accusing the FBI of sending him out on a directionless fishing expedition. In interviews and press conferences, they promoted the lie that the FBI has been infiltrating mosques across the United States and actually radicalized the members and exhorted them to carry out jihad. Niazi, however, clearly was identified as the promoter of jihad and bin Laden by the FBI. He allegedly lied about his communication with his brother-in-law, who provided security to bin Laden.

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