Was there a Muslim plot to poison food at U.S. Army base?

by: jim kouri | published: 02 22, 2010

Five Muslims were arrested last December for suspicion of attempting to poison the food supply at the Fort Jackson U.S. Army base in South Carolina.

In a news story broken by Fox News Channel's national security correspondent Catherine Herridge on Thursday afternoon, and verified by this writer's confidential source on Thursday night, the five men were part of the Army's special Arabic Translation Training Team (ATTT).

It is suspected that the five arrested men were in contact with five Washington, DC-based radical Muslims, who were also arrested in December. According to several sources, counterterrorism officials uncovered their plan to travel to Pakistan where they could help fight U.S. forces along the Afghan-Pakistani border. It is not known if -- or where -- the alleged conspirators are being detained.

Fort Dix U.S. Army base plot

This is not the first time a deadly plot against a U.S. military base has been thwarted. In May, 2007, five radical Islamists -- three of them brothers -- have been arrested and charged with plotting to kill as many soldiers as possible in an armed assault at the Fort Dix Army base in New Jersey, according to agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

A sixth defendant is charged with aiding and abetting the illegal possession of firearms by three of the members of the group.

The arrests occurred last night in Cherry Hill as two of the defendants were meeting a confidential government witness to purchase three AK-47 automatic machine guns and four semi-automatic M-16s to be used in an attack they had been planning from at least January 2006, according to criminal Complaints unsealed this morning.

Some members of the group allegedly conducted surveillance at Fort Dix and also at Fort Monmouth in New Jersey, Dover Air Force Base in Delaware and the U.S. Coast Guard in Philadelphia. The co-conspirators obtained a detailed map of Fort Dix, where they said they hoped to use assault rifles and rocket propelled grenades to kill as many soldiers as possible.

They also did small-arms training at a shooting range in the Pocono Mountains in Pennsylvania and distributed training videos amongst themselves that included depictions of American soldiers being killed and known foreign Islamic radicals urging jihad against the United States.

In the wake of Fort Hood terror attack

The Fort Jackson terrorist plot against U.S. armed forces personnel came in the wake of a mass shooting at Fort Hood, Texas last November, which killed 13 people -- 12 soldiers and one civilian -- and wounded 31.

That shooting spree was perpetrated by a U.S. Army psychiatrist, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, an American-born Muslim of Palestinian descent. Hasan had been charged and he's being prosecuted within the U.S. military justice system.

The five Muslim soldiers allegedly involved in the Fort Jackson poisoning plot are being investigated by the U.S. Army's Criminal Investigation Division (CID), according to Fox News.

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