As we count down to the impending “credible terror threat” it is important to take a real look at the nature of many of the planned terror attacks in the USA. Gordon Corera takes an eye opening look at an interesting source of terror in the homeland for the BBC:
In May 2009 David Williams was keeping watch at the corner of 246th Street and Independence Avenue in the Bronx, New York — the look out for a terror group aiming to blow up a building nearby. The target was the Riverdale Jewish Center where the terror cell’s leader, James Cromitie, was planting what he believed to be two devices containing C-4 plastic explosive.
Having completed their task, the four man team planned to then head back to their hometown of Newburgh, a run-down town 60 miles (97km) north of New York City, where they intended to use a surface-to-air missile to take down a military plane at the Stewart Air National Guard Base.
The weapons had been provided by a Pakistani man. A few weeks earlier he had met the four men to discuss the attacks. He had accompanied them as they selected a site from which to fire the missile and he was also with them when they bought mobile phones for the plot, and travelled to a Connecticut warehouse to obtain the missile and explosives.
Before the team could return to Newburgh and attack their second target a Swat team moved in and arrested the cell — all except the Pakistani. He was in fact an undercover informant working for the FBI, and the weapons he provided were an inactive missile and inert explosives. The four others were subsequently found guilty of terrorism offences and each sentenced to 25 years in prison.
Read More: BBC
