A number of media outlets are reporting that a cell of Islamic converts were foiled in an attempt to blow up New York area synagogues. The New York Times reports:
Four men were arrested Wednesday night in what the authorities said was a plot to bomb two synagogues in the Bronx and shoot down military planes at an Air National Guard base in Newburgh, N.Y.
The men, all of whom live in Newburgh, about 60 miles north of New York City, were arrested around 9 p.m. after planting what they believed to be bombs in cars outside the Riverdale Temple and the nearby Riverdale Jewish Center, officials said. But the men did not know the bombs, obtained with the help of an informant for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, were fake.
The New York Post has a somewhat colorful account of the arrest:
The jihadist wannabes — all from Newburgh, NY — began their unholy mission last night at around 9 p.m. at the Riverdale Temple on Independence Avenue, authorities said.
They planted what they thought were explosives in a parked car outside the house of worship.
One acted as a lookout, while the other three allegedly drove up the block to the Riverdale Jewish Center and planted two more bags of “explosives” in cars.
Unbeknownst to them, their explosives were duds — supplied by authorities who had been monitoring their plan for more than a year.
Cops swooped in and arrested them right after they allegedly planted the last of the phony bombs.
2 questions:
1) Had four white supremacists planned on attacking black churches, would the Times have carried the report in the New York Region section or the front page?
UPDATE: I was wrong here. When I saw that the URL contained “nyregion” I assumed that it originated in the Metropolitan section. But indeed it was a front page story.
2) Do the facts that the four suspects were converts and from the same place suggest the existence of a Finsbury Square type mosque? LGF thinks so, but there seems to be no specific information in the news accounts reporting this.
UPDATE: A third question: Recently FBI suspended all cooperation with CAIR. The officially stated reason was the ties of CAIR to Hamas. But given that this investigation has been going on for a year, is it possible that CAIR either refused to cooperate or had ties to the suspects?
Crossposted on Soccer Dad.
