Police1.com Critical Alert - Domestic Terrorism
According to Fox News, the FBI has confirmed that three people, including a British man, were arrested in the New York City area Tuesday in an alleged plot to smuggle a surface-to-air missile into the United States. According to a law enforcement source the “big one” involved a British national who was arrested in Newark, N.J. A New Jersey law-enforcement official said the arrest occurred at a hotel near Newark International Airport.
The two other arrests were made in New York City, including that of an Afghani national. The source said, “we got everyone we wanted in the U.S.” Arrest warrants were also being executed in the United Kingdom and Russia. Another law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity said the British man does not appear to be connected to a known terrorist group. The suspect is thought to be more of an arms dealer or smuggler, the official said.
A surface-to-air missile, identified as an SA-18 that is “capable of shooting down a plane,” was confiscated. The missile was brought to the United States aboard a ship to make the deal seem real but was under the supervision of investigators, the official said. It had been rendered incapable of being fired.
Authorities stressed that no specific, credible threat was connected to the alleged plot. The investigation lasted some five months. It was not immediately clear whether the plot was connected to Al Qaeda or some other terrorist network. Justice Department officials had no immediate comment on the case.
Concerns about terrorists using shoulder-fired missiles to shoot down commercial airliners increased in November when two SA-7 missiles narrowly missed an Israeli passenger jet after it took off from Mombasa, Kenya. Officials concluded that Al Qaeda probably was behind the attack, which coincided with a bomb blast at a nearby hotel. Hundreds and perhaps thousands of shoulder-fired missiles -heat-seeking rockets that can hit low-flying aircraft within three miles - are said to be available on the worldwide arms market. Older missile launchers can be bought for as little as several thousand dollars.
Meanwhile, the United States recently warned a number of countries of the threat posed by SAMs and has sent experts to domestic airports as well as to airports in Iraq and major capitals in Europe and Asia to assess security. The investigators are trying to determine whether the airports can be defended against shoulder-fired missiles.
Source: Fox News; FBI
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