n ec i a
Report
R A D CA
Jihad
Terrorist plot underscores independent threat.
WashingtonlJTA
T
he arrest of four men accused of
plotting to attack two Bronx syn-
agogues underscores the threat
to Jewish targets by individuals or small
groups, several experts said.
From the shooting at a Los Angeles
Jewish community center 10 years ago
through the attack on the Seattle Jewish
federation building in 2006, to the individ-
ual targeting Jews at Wesleyan University
in Connecticut earlier this month, an
individual or small group not formally
connected with Al Qaida or any major
international terrorist group was at the
center of the threat.
Steve Pomerantz, former assistant direc-
tor and director of counterterrorism at the
FBI, compared the lessons from last week's
arrests to the popular book All I Really
Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten.
He asserted that Jews will always be at
the top of the list of targets for terrorists
and that groups unaffiliated with a large
international terrorist group are "at least
as dangerous" as well-known groups such
as Al Qaida because they can "more easily
slip through the intelligence net."
Paul Goldenberg, executive director of
the Jewish-organized Secure Community
Network, stressed "one common denomi-
nator" present in all those past plots: hos-
tile surveillance by the attackers.
"They were methodical enough and pre-
Washington—JTA
he four men who planned to blow
up two synagogues in the Bronx
"wanted to commit jihad," the
New York Police commissioner said.
James Cromitie, David Williams,
Onta Williams and Laguerre Paye also
wanted to shoot down military planes,
according to reports.
The four men, all of Newburgh, 60
miles north of New York, were arrested
on May 20. Payen is a native of Haiti.
All four are Muslims, and three report-
edly are recent converts to Islam.
"They stated that they wanted to
commit jihad," Commissioner Raymond
Kelly said following their arrest.
He spoke during a news conference
at the Riverdale Jewish Center, one of
the targeted synagogues.
"They were disturbed about what
I
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May 28 - 2009
meditated enough to plan and study the
target," said Goldenberg, whose organiza-
tion was started three years ago by New
York-based United Jewish Communities
and the Conference of Presidents of Major
American Jewish Organizations to coor-
dinate and advise on security procedures
within the Jewish community.
For example, the criminal complaint for
the New York plot states that last month,
one of the defendants "photographed
several synagogues and Jewish commu-
nity centers in the Bronx and elsewhere
for consideration as possible targets in a
planned terrorist bombing campaign" and
said bombing one of the JCCs would be a
"piece of cake."
That's why employees and others at
Jewish institutions need to be "extremely
cognizant" of what's going on around the
facility, Goldenberg said, because indi-
viduals could be watching the building,
studying the patterns in which people
enter and the times security guards patrol
the surroundings.
"If people are acting nervous in a
location where they shouldn't be, say
something:' Goldenberg said, adding that
while most institutions have video camera
surveillance, personnel must be trained to
spot potential dangers.
Pomerantz noted reports that the plot-
ters met in prison, similar to the four men
arrested in Los Angeles in 2005 on charges
of plotting terror attacks on Jewish and
military targets.
Yehudit Barsky, who has been track-
ing that issue as director of the American
Jewish Committee's division on Middle
East and international terrorism, said
prisoners often are attracted to Islam
when incarcerated because of the cohe-
siveness of the group. "There are different
social networks in prison" and Muslims
will often pray together, eat together and
protect each other, she said.
Learning about Islamist ideology comes
later, often as prisoners start reading
materials in prison libraries — publica-
tions that have, like many other religious
publications, been sent free to the facility.
Said Kenneth Jacobson, acting direc-
tor of the Anti-Defamation League's New
York regional office: "The arrests illustrate
how law enforcement continues to play
a critical role in ensuring the safety and
security of the Jewish community and in
protecting all of its citizens from terror-
ism. We have long known that Jews remain
a prime target for would-be terrorists, and
we must always remain vigilant in the face
of this threat. With similarities to other
recent plots by American-born Muslim
extremists, this one serves as a troubling
reminder of the broader problem of the
increased radicalization of a small subset
of the domestic Muslim population."
Reuters reports that three of the four
terrorists who had planned the foiled
bombing in New York all served prison
was happening in Afghanistan and
Pakistan, that Muslims were being
killed," he said. "They were making
statements that Jews were killed in
this attack and that would be all right
– that sort of thing."
Kelly said the men were arraigned
in federal district court on charges of
conspiracy to use weapons of mass
destruction within the U.S. and con-
spiracy to acquire and use anti-aircraft
missiles; the defendants did not enter
pleas and were held without bail. They
were not acting on behalf of any ter-
rorist organizations and described
them as "petty criminals" with mul-
tiple arrests for minor crimes.
According to the U.S. Attorney's
statement, an informant working with
the FBI this month provided the four
men with a disabled anti-aircraft mis-
sile launcher and disabled explosives.
The men on May 20 planted the
fake explosives, which they believed
to be real, in cars parked outside
the Riverdale Temple, a Reform
synagogue, and the Riverdale Jewish
Center, an Orthodox synagogue.
Last month, according to the state-
ment and to the criminal complaint,
the defendants photographed several
synagogues and a Jewish community
center in the Riverdale section of
the Bronx as well as the Air National
Guard Base in Newburgh.
Cromitie, who according to the com-
plaint told the informant that his par-
ents once lived in Afghanistan, alleg-
edly expressed an interest in working
with the Pakistan-based Islamist ter-
rorist group Jaish-e-Mohammed.
The first meeting between the
informer and Cromitie took place in
June 2008 in a mosque in Newburgh.
terms and are converts
to Islam. This pi*-
nomenon is directly
referenced in the Clarion
Fund's newest film, The
Third Jihad - Radical
Islam's Vision for
America.
ADL's Kenneth
"In a segment dis-
Jacobson
cussing 'Prison Islam,
New York City Police
Commissioner Ray Kelly explains that
about 18 percent of prisoners in New York
State correctional facilities are Islamic.
Radical imams feed off the discontent
of these prisoners, this large and captive
audience, and turn them into extrem-
ists capable of deplorable acts against
American society:' said Peter Connors,
Clarion's executive director.
In a letter to Rabbi Jonathan Rosenblatt
and Rabbi Judith S. Lewis of its neigh-
bor, Riverdale Temple, Orthodox Union
President Stephen J. Savitsky and
Executive Vice President Rabbi Steven
Weil, formerly of Young Israel of Oak
Park, declared, "All Jewish institutions
must be on guard against such hatred and
such murderous activities. The OU will
continue to work diligently to seek ways
of improving security at Jewish houses
of worship, schools and other commu-
nal organizations, and will continue our
efforts to secure Jewish lives and Jewish
institutions." ❑
"While the weapons provided to the
defendants by the cooperating witness
were fake, the defendants thought
they were absolutely real," acting
U.S. Attorney Lev Dassin said in the
statement. "The defendants planned
to strike military planes with surface-
to-air guided missiles and to destroy
a synagogue and a Jewish community
center with C-4 plastic explosives."
Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, president and
founder of the American Islamic Forum
for Democracy, said radicalization in
U.S. prisons is an immediate threat.
"It's now acknowledged that at least
some of the alleged bombers were rad-
icalized in U.S. prisons," he said. "It's
significant that this terrorist plot was
targeted against synagogues, under-
scoring the dangerous hatred pro-
moted by radical imams in American
prisons."
❑