Fort Dix Plot Trial Opens

In his opening statements in the trial of five men accused of plotting to sneak onto a New Jersey military base and kill soldiers, a prosecutor said that al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden inspired the men to plan an attack on Fort Dix.

The government has presented the case as one of the most frightening examples of homegrown terrorism since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

Authorities say that in 2006 and 2007, the men turned paintball games into terrorist training sessions and met at places like Dunkin' Donuts to discuss killing soldiers on the Army installation.

No attack was carried out.

"Their motive was to defend Islam. Their inspiration was al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. Their intent was to kill members of the United States armed services," Deputy U.S. Attorney William Fitzpatrick told the jury.

Fitzpatrick said the jury would see jihadist videos that the defendants watched and would learn many details of the alleged plot, including assertions by the government that one the men went on reconnaissance missions at Fort Dix and other military installations.

The men are charged with attempted murder, conspiracy to commit murder and weapons offenses.

Their lawyers are expected to question the role, motives and character of two paid government informants who made hundreds of hours of secret recordings that form the bulk of the evidence in the trial.

Defense lawyers contend that their clients had no plot except what the government's informants prodded them into discussing.

Fitzpatrick tried to hedge against such criticism on Monday.

He said the FBI had to find people who would have credibility with aspiring terrorists; one of the informants was interested in citizenship and the other was interested in money, he said.

More than 200 people are on the list of potential witnesses in the trial, which is expected to stretch into December.

It took most of three weeks just to seat 12 jurors and six alternates from a pool of 1,500 potential jurors. The seated jury includes four men and eight women, one of whom is the mother of a veteran who was wounded in Iraq.

The federal government argues that the May 2007 capture of Serdar Tatar, Mohamad Ibrahim Shnewer and the brothers Dritan, Eljvir and Shain Duka saved innocent lives.

The case will be watched closely because it represents a type of pre-emptive prosecution that has grown more common in U.S. terrorism cases since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, which troubles some experts.

The five defendants - all foreign-born Muslim men in their 20s who have spent much of their lives in the southern New Jersey suburbs of Philadelphia - face charges of attempted murder, conspiracy and weapons offenses and could be sentenced to life in prison if convicted on all counts.

Authorities said the five prepared for an attack by scouting out military bases, buying weapons and by training in paintball games and a shooting range in the Pocono mountains of Pennsylvania.

The case is complicated because no attack was carried out. Prosecutors are trying to prove not only that they arrested the right men, but that the suspects were planning a crime.

Government prosecutors are expected to portray the men as hateful to America and sympathetic to terrorists.

The defense is likely to argue that while their clients may have spoken ill of America and even rooted for terrorists, that does not mean they intended to kill soldiers.

Defense lawyers had been trying to get evidence that the men had anti-Semitic views barred from trial. They also tried to prevent government prosecutors from showing videos that the men allegedly watched that included scenes of Americans being beheaded in Iraq.

U.S. District Judge Robert Kugler said prosecutors could present that evidence. But he said the videos must be stopped before any actual beheadings are shown.