“Obviously, you don’t want to tip off every suspect that they are being monitored. On the other hand, we are not going to wait until the fuse is lit.”
By Toby Harnden in the Telegraph, with thanks to Sr. Soph:
The alleged conspiracy to blow up John F Kennedy airport, in New York, and a recent plot to kill soldiers at a nearby United States Army base represent only the “tip of the iceberg” of terrorist plots against America, according to US officials.
“There’s a lot of activity out there,” a counter-terrorism official said yesterday.
“Obviously, you don’t want to tip off every suspect that they are being monitored. On the other hand, we are not going to wait until the fuse is lit.”
He said that the airport plot, which sparked a lengthy FBI sting operation, was first detected by CIA operatives in the Caribbean and South America nearly 18 months ago.
“Our intelligence agencies pay careful attention to what goes on there,” the official told The Daily Telegraph.
“Although a lot of the public focus is on Europe, we’re also looking closely at the home-grown threat and what’s going on in our own back yard.”
He indicated that dozens of other plots were being monitored but that improved co-operation between the CIA and FBI – the patchy nature of which was a major criticism of the 9/11 Commission Report – was bearing fruit….
Then there is more information on the JFK plot:
According to the FBI, Defreitas linked up with Kareem Ibrahim, a Trinidanian connected to the Jamaat Al-Muslimeen, an extremist Black Muslim group that attempted to overthrow the government of Trinidad in 1990, and two Guyanans, Abdul Kadir and Abdel Nur.
Nur, of Pakistani origin, is still at large. Kadir, an imam and former member of the Guyanese parliament, was arrested after a plane on which he was flying to Venezuela was turned back to Trinidad. His wife said he was heading to Iran for a “religious conference”.
Oh, that’s sure to be peaceful.