Homegrown Terror On The Rise?

Seven men accused of trying to blow up the Sears Tower with help from al Qaeda never actually made contact with the terrorist network and were instead caught in an FBI sting involving an informant who posed as an al Qaeda operative, authorities said Friday.

Federal prosecutors said the men — who operated out of a warehouse in Miami's blighted Liberty City section — took an oath to al Qaeda and plotted to create an "Islamic Army" bent on violence against the United States. Five of those arrested are U.S. citizens.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales stressed that there was no immediate threat in either Chicago or Miami because the group did not have explosives or other materials it was seeking.

"This group was more aspirational than operational," FBI Deputy Director John Pistole said.

Nevertheless, Gonzales said Thursday's arrests underscored the danger of "homegrown terrorists" who "view their home country as the enemy."

Identifying the suspects was possible due to hours upon hours of surveillance video of the suspects. Officials say they even have tape of them meeting in a warehouse where they joined in a circle, raised their hands, and — led by a guy who turned out to be an FBI informant — repeated the al Qaeda "pledge of allegiance," CBS News national security correspondent Jim Stewart reports.

Those arrested ranged in age from 22 to 32 and included a legal immigrant from Haiti and a Haitian who was in this country illegally. Investigators said all members of the alleged plot were in custody.

"We are confident that we have identified every individual who had the intent of posing a threat to the United States," said R. Alexander Acosta, U.S. attorney in Miami.

What scares the FBI, however, is how many gangs like this one are out there who haven't tripped over their own feet and gotten caught, Stewart reports. As CBS News reported earlier this month, in the past year, agents have busted al Qaeda-inspired cells in Torrance, Calif., Toledo, Ohio, and Atlanta — which had ties to a 17-man Toronto cell. Now there's Miami.

"These extremists are self-recruited, self trained and self executing," FBI director Robert Mueller said.

Six of the seven suspects accused of involvement in a terrorism plot have appeared in federal courts under heavy security, five in Miami and a sixth in Atlanta. In Miami, they were brought in and out in single file, chained together at the wrists and wearing ankle chains.

"It's an example of the philosophy of prevention. These arrests were made during the talking stage, long before any bombmaking stage," said Kendall Coffey, a former U.S. attorney in Florida. "While they may be seen as bungling wannabes, they are potentially dangerous wannabes who, based on the allegations, were pursuing extremely dangerous plans."

Joseph Phanor, the father of defendant Stanley Grant Phanor, said he did not believe "anything they say about" his son.

"This boy, he's not a violent boy. He never got into trouble. He didn't want to kill people," the elder Phanor said. Court records show that his son was convicted of carrying a concealed firearm in 2002 and sentenced to two years' probation.

And questions are already being raised about the gravity of the charges against the men. CBS News legal analyst Andrew Cohen calls the indictment of the men "extraordinary for what it does not contain."

"It does not contain allegations that the men ever met with a genuine al Qaeda operative ... it does not contain allegations that the men ever purchased any munitions or went anywhere near Chicago to case the building. It does not contain allegations that the men had any sort of a specific plan or detailed plot to take down the Sears Tower," Cohen said.

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See the 11-page federal indictment.

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But a multitude of urban and global circumstances can breed seeds of terror. First is the proliferation of Web sites on terrorist subjects — the London subway bombers, for example, got their explosives recipe off the Internet, Stewart reports. Then there are personal Web spaces where wannabe terrorists can search for like-minded people.

In court today, several suspects said they were unemployed — and had neither a checking nor a savings account, CBS News correspondent Jim Acosta reports. That kind of poverty — say residents in the neighborhood — could be what led these men astray.

"This is fertile ground. If I was Osama Bin Laden that's where I would go," said Liberty City resident Leo Casino.

Prosecutors said accused ringleader Narseal Batiste began recruiting and training the others in November. The FBI learned of the plot from someone the defendants tried to recruit, authorities said. The FBI then arranged for an informant of Arabic descent to pass himself off as an al Qaeda operative.

Batiste met several times in December with the informant and asked for boots, uniforms, machine guns, radios, vehicles and $50,000 to help him build an "Islamic Army," the indictment said.

In February, Batiste told the informant that he and his five soldiers wanted to attend al Qaeda training and planned a "full ground war" against the United States in order to "kill all the devils we can," according to the indictment. His mission would "be just as good or greater than 9/11," it said.

Prosecutors said the men plotted to blow up Chicago's Sears Tower, the tallest building in America, and other buildings.

But while the men are accused of taking pictures of their targets, other details from the indictment sound less like al Qaeda. A request for a digital video camera, a rental car and even military boots (sizes were provided to the informant), Acosta reports.

Batiste and a co-defendant provided the informant with photographs of the FBI building in North Miami Beach, as well as video footage of other Miami government buildings, and discussed a plot to bomb the FBI building, the indictment said.

Richard Shultz, professor of International Security at Tufts University in Massachusetts, said that groups such as the one in Miami could pose a threat even if they do not make contact with al Qaeda.

"You don't have to go to Afghanistan like the internationalists did in the 1980s to join the jihadist movement; you can do it from your computer in Miami," he said.

Relatives described the defendants as deeply religious people who studied the Bible and took classes in Islam. The elder Phanor said that his son went to classes on Islam with a friend but that he read the Bible at his father's house.

Phanor's brother Michael said his brother owned a construction company and had been friends with this group for about a year. He said they were trying to do community service in the area where they grew up, studying martial arts to keep in shape and setting a good example for neighborhood kids.

No pleas were entered during Friday's court hearing. A federal magistrate scheduled another hearing for next Friday on whether to release the men on bail. He appointed lawyers for Batiste and the four others who said they could not afford one.

Batiste told the court he was self-employed, a father of four and earned about $30,000 a year, but he provided no details.

A sixth defendant, Lyglenson Lemorin, was arrested in Atlanta and made a court appearance there. Phanor did not appear in court. He was in custody on what authorities said was an unrelated state charge.

In addition to Batiste and Phanor, the defendants were identified as Patrick Abraham, or "Brother Pat"; Naudimar Herrera or "Brother Naudy"; Lemorin, also known as "Brother Levi" or Brother Levi-El"; and Rotschild Augustine, or "Brother Rot."

Officials at the 110-floor Sears Tower said in a statement: "Law enforcement continues to tell us that they have never found evidence of a credible terrorism threat against Sears Tower that has gone beyond criminal discussions."

John Huston, executive vice president of the Sears Tower, said that it was "business as usual" at the building Friday and that attendance was good at the skydeck on the 103rd floor.