Two New Jersey men allegedly bent on waging holy war against the US were arrested last night at JFK airport as they prepared to board separate flights to Egypt to join an Al Qaeda-linked group, according to a report.
Federal and local authorities, including the NYPD, also raided the North Bergen home of Mohamed Hamoud Alessa, 20, and the Elmwood Park residence of Carlos Eduardo Almonte, 26, the Newark Star-Ledger said.
The suspects were nabbed as they walked onto the jetway boarding ramps for separate flights. The arrests had been planned for days, according to the report.
During a lengthy investigation, an NYPD undercover officer recorded conversations with the men in which they spoke about jihad against Americans.
“I leave this time. God willing, I never come back,” authorities say Alessa told the officer last year. “Only way I would come back here is if I was in the land of jihad and the leader ordered me to come back here and do something here. Ah, I love that.”
Sources said that the suspects’ families dropped the dime on their relatives after they grew concerned about their increasingly radical beliefs.
The men had reportedly led fairly normal lives until recently, but boasted that they wanted to wage holy war against the US both here and abroad.
In the past few months, the duo had saved thousands of dollars, worked-out, practiced tactical maneuvers at local paintball fields and bought gear and apparel they would use to fight Americans overseas.
The would-be terrorists, who have been eyed by authorities since October 2006, eventually planned to goto Somalia where they would join al Shabaab, a youth-terror network with links to al Qaeda, the report said.
The arrests were part of “Operation Arabian Knight,” which began when an undercover NYPD cop made friends with the suspects and met their pals to keep an eye on them as they consumed jihadist videos and literature and bought airline tickets overseas, the paper said.
Other people were being eyed as part of the investigation and one official said that authorities hoped that the busts would lead to a “spider web” of other arrests.
Officials said the suspects were not planning an imminent attack in the New York-New Jersey area but were headed to Somalia to wage war against Americans there.
Somalia has been a hot-bed of terror recruitment in recent years.
Agents at Almonte’s home met with a couple who appeared to be his family there around 11:30 p.m. The couple acted as if they knew the agents, the paper said.
The older man walked into the house with a G-man and was seen hugging an agent in the kitchen.
At Alessa’s home on 81st Street, feds sealed off the block.
Records show that his parents, Mahmoud and Nadia Alessa, rented the top floor of the house.
Both men were charged with conspiring to commit an act of international terrorism in Newark federal court.
— with AP
