Six foreign-born Muslims arrested in terrorist plot.

Six foreign-born Muslims were arrested May 7 in New Jersey and charged with a plot to "kill as many American soldiers as possible" at Fort Dix. The group, which reportedly had been under federal surveillance for 17 months, was arrested as the men tried to buy automatic weapons from an undercover operative. Authorities were tipped off to the terror scheme when the men asked a video-store clerk to copy a videotape of them firing their assault weapons and shouting about jihad in Arabic. The clerk contacted the FBI.

Although all of the men have lived in the United States for many years, only one is a U.S. citizen. Two are here as permanent legal residents, and three are here illegally. The defendants, all in their 20s, are from Turkey, Jordan, and the former Yugoslavia. One of the men reportedly used his job as a pizza deliveryman to scout out the Army base at Fort Dix. But the terrorist cell also conducted reconnaissance on Fort Monmouth in New Jersey, Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, and a Philadelphia Coast Guard station.

In March 2006, a cooperating witness infiltrated the group for a federal-state counterterrorist task force and began recording the terror plot in vivid detail. Last August the witness recorded one of the plot members explaining to the others how they could kill as many as 100 soldiers in an attack using mortars, rocket-propelled grenades, and other weapons.