Homegrown terrorists continued

We learned more today

The Federal Bureau of Investigation's deputy director said today that a plot to blow up the Sears Tower in Chicago by seven Miami men now facing federal conspiracy charges was "more aspirational than operational," but illustrated the threat posed by small groups without connections to international terror networks.

"We pre-empted their plot," he said.

A federal indictment handed down on Thursday and released today said the group had sought help for their plot from a man they believed to be a representative of Al Qaeda, but who actually was an informer. They asked him for money, weapons, binoculars and boots and in return pledged loyalty to Al Qaeda and offered to assist in a supposed plot to blow up federal buildings in five cities.

Mr. Pistole said the group had no actual connection to Al Qaeda. And beyond the oath, the only other overt act described in the indictment was taking video footage of the F.B.I. office in Miami.

The seven men named in the indictment were other men indicted were Narseal Batiste, Patrick Abraham, Stanley Grant Phanor, Naudimar Herrera, Burson Augustin, Lyglenson Lemorin and Rothschild Augustin.

They lived together in a windowless, one-story warehouse in Miami's Liberty City section, a struggling neighborhood of Haitian immigrants. Federal officials said the group never had actual contact with al-Qaeda, but that the group's ringleader, Mr. Batiste, a Haitian American, "made the first indication of an intent to make an attack" against an F.B.I. office in North Miami, Mr. Pistole said at a news conference in Washington

The men were charged with conspiring to support a terrorist group, to wage war against the United States and to use explosives to damage or destroy the Sears Tower and the F.B.I. building.

My original post on this story is here.

Steven Taylor called these men jihadist wannabes. I have to concur. They fell for a FBI informer. Did these men take out an ad in The Miami Herald too?

Their threat was probably slight but we will now never know. On the other hand these 7 Miami men will have a long time to contemplate how dumb they were.

Open Post- Dumb Ox, Outside the Beltway,