Homegrown Terror On The Rise?

FBI: Would-Be Terrorists Sought, But Didn't Get, Help From Al Qaeda

(CBS/AP)  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.