Can I have some Semtex along with my slurpee?

Yesterday's Miami Herald had a detailed article about how FBI moles uncovered Florida's homegrown terrorists.

The reputed ringleader of the Liberty City Seven was leery of the two Arabic men who promised to help him launch his terror war.

So in January, he ordered his followers to strip-search them both to make sure they weren't wearing wires and drive them to Islamorada in the Florida Keys for a meeting on the beach.

Sitting inside a tent, one of the men boasted of his intimate ties to al Qaeda, bragging about his role in ''planning the attack'' by al Qaeda on the USS Cole in Yemen in 2000, a bombing that killed 17 sailors, and about his connection to an explosives expert in Europe at his beck and call.

He lied. The two men had, in fact, no ties to the terrorist organization but were moles for the Feds. But their performance was enough to erase Narseal Batiste's distrust -- thus salvaging a stalled FBI investigation. It would culminate last month in the high-profile arrests of seven young men from Miami who authorities say were hellbent on causing carnage across the country.

Newly obtained federal court documents, filled with transcripts of secret FBI recordings, tell how two unidentified informants risked their lives and describe one man's delusions of grandeur -- and determination -- to wage his own holy war.

The improbable tale began last fall in a North Miami convenience store.

Batiste, a struggling contractor born in Chicago who headed the local branch here of a Moorish religious sect, became friendly with the store's owner after learning that he was going to Yemen on vacation in October. The store owner happened to be an FBI informant.

After the shopkeeper's return, Batiste, with two of his followers present, laid out his vision. Batiste said that he was a member of the Moorish Science Temple -- a sect that blends Christianity, Judaism and Islam -- and that its members were entitled to their own government within the United States. Violence was the only way, he said, and he explained to the store owner that only extreme Islamic groups, such as al Qaeda, could help.

The shopkeeper told the FBI of Batiste's plans. For FBI agents, the threat was serious enough to have him introduce Batiste to another informant, an Arabic man with a thick accent.

The second man was Mohammad, a friend of the store owner's uncle. Batiste pressed the shopkeeper to find out whether the man knew al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, but was told that question was off limits.

On Dec. 16, a nervous Batiste met with Mohammad in a room at a Radisson hotel and gave him a list of must-have items for a jihad: uniforms, boots, machine guns, radios and vehicles.

Six days later, they met at Bayside Marketplace, then proceeded to the ''embassy,'' the now infamous warehouse in Liberty City, where Batiste and his followers lived and trained in martial arts in plain view of neighbors.

Batiste disclosed that he had 100 guerrillas who could train in Louisiana and Alabama and that it would take about one year to carry out his mission. The main target was one he knew from his days as a FedEx delivery driver: Chicago's 110-story Sears Tower.

''If I can put up a building,'' said Batiste, who worked in construction, ``then I should definitely know how to bring one down.''

Mohammad later gave Batiste a cellphone -- which was bugged by the FBI. Batiste also asked for $50,000 cash.

Go to the Herald website and read the rest. Narseal Batiste sounds more paranoid than intelligent. He'll have a long time in jail to contemplate just how stupid he was.

Hat tip- Florida Cracker who says you'll never look at the guy who runs the neighborhood convenience store the same way ever again.
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