Inside the JFK terror plot

NY Times:

Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn charged today that a retired cargo worker at Kennedy International Airport plotted with a former member of the Guyanese Parliament and two other men to blow up terminal buildings, fuel tanks and the network of fuel pipelines that run beneath the airport complex.

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... officials said Mr. Defreitas, who had long worked at the 4,930-acre airport, developing a thorough knowledge of its layout and its vulnerabilities, sought an attack that he said, according to secretly recorded conversations, would result in “the destruction of the whole of Kennedy,” an attack that only a few people would survive.

In addition to a huge loss of life — “even the twin towers can’t touch it,” he said of the plot — the attack would devastate the United States economy and strike a deep symbolic blow against a national icon, President John F. Kennedy.

“Anytime you hit Kennedy, it is the most hurtful thing to the United States,” he said in one of dozens of conversations secretly recorded during the 18-month investigation. “To hit John F. Kennedy, wow.... They love John F. Kennedy like he’s the man ... If you hit that, this whole country will be in mourning. It’s like you can kill the man twice.”

The officials said that Mr. Kadir, on the other hand, emphasized the goal of causing economic damage, and seemed to seek to minimize the killing of innocent men and women.

But a spokesman for Buckeye Partners, the company that operates the pipeline, said that an explosion at a fuel-tank farm at the airport would not ignite the pipeline.

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Mr. Defreitas, who lives in Brooklyn, was arrested at a diner on Linden Boulevard in Brooklyn about 10 p.m. Friday. Mr. Kadir and Mr. Ibrahim were arrested earlier in Trinidad.

Mr. Kadir had been detained after boarding a flight on Aeropostal, a Venezuelan airline, which was to go Caracas, an official briefed on the arrest said today. The flight between Port of Spain and Caracas, which usually takes less than an hour, had taken off and was told to return to Trinidad, the official said.

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The NY Times does not discuss their religious affiliation for some reason. Perhaps they are worried about Islamophobia, but if they really are out to get us, it is not a phobia. It is real.

Little Green Footballs says that the liberal blogs have been left speechless by the plot. Gateway Pundit has several links and photos.

ABC News says there is concern that the accused were tied to "one of the most wanted al Qaeda leaders, Adnan Shukrijumah, known to have operated out of Guyana and Trinidad." There is a $5 million reward for finding him.