NEW YORK — For the past two years, people at the small mosque in Newburgh, N.Y., were suspicious that a government informant was in their midst.
The man talked about violent jihad, took people to lunch to push his beliefs and even offered some money. Salahuddin Muhammad, the imam of the mosque, said he warned people away.
But four members were apparently taken in, by either him or someone else, and were arrested around 9 p.m. Wednesday in the Bronx as they planted what they thought were bombs in the heavily Jewish neighborhood of Riverdale. The suspects reportedly planned to detonate the devices remotely and then drive to the Air National Guard base in Newburgh, about 60 miles north, to shoot down military aircraft with a missile.
The suspects were unaware that the bombs were fake and the missile faulty and that the man who provided them was an FBI informant, according to a criminal complaint. Muhammad said he suspected the informant was the man who showed up suddenly at his mosque, Masjid al-Ikhlas, about two years ago.
In a news conference at the Riverdale Jewish Center, an Orthodox synagogue that was a target, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly told reporters that the four defendants had met in prison and now live in Newburgh, according to wire reports.
