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PA. PLAYGROUND BECOMES TERROR TRAINING GROUND Fort Dix suspects plotted in
the Poconos, feds say Sunday, May 20, 2007 BY DUNSTAN McNICHOL AND JOHN P.
MARTIN Star-Ledger StaffGOULDSBORO, Pa. -- Cassy Herman booked two unforgettable renters last winter for her Pocono Mountain vacation property. First came Eljvir Duka, a 23-year-old Cherry Hill resident, who wanted the Gouldsboro, Pa., house on Feb. 1. Duka offered Her man a $900 cash deposit in early December; she took it. Six weeks later, a second man asked to lease the property for the end of January. He promised to leave hours before Herman's next renter arrived. Again, she agreed. But something gnawed at Her man as she hung up the phone. So she picked it up, redialed the last number on her caller ID and listened in stunned silence at what came next. "FBI," a voice answered. The calls, described by Herman in an interview at her home in Blackwood, Camden County, last week, occurred months before agents accused Duka and four oth ers of conspiring to storm Fort Dix with assault weapons. What authorities say happened in the Pennsylvania mountains during that winter week goes a long way to shaping the government's portrait of the suspects as "radical Islamists" methodically plotting a terror strike on U.S. soil. Prosecutors say Gouldsboro is where Duka and others practiced firearms training, spent their nights discussing explosives, and studied al Qaeda videos, even laughing out loud after watching one that showed an American soldier's hand being blown off. "They went to the house in the Poconos ... to use for training purposes for their attack on Fort Dix," U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie said after the arrests. Interviews, a review of court records and other public documents offer a clearer image of the Poconos chapter of the 15-month investiga tion into a South Jersey terror cell that authorities say they disrupted earlier this month. With secret video cameras, hid den microphones, undercover agents and at least two informants, investigators monitored most every aspect of that frosty February trip, turning a sleepy mountain village into the backdrop for what they say is a new front on terrorism: homegrown insurgents. But a few puzzling contradic tions also emerged. At least 14 people crowded into Herman's house that week, a band of chatty, vodka-swilling young men who included roofers, a baker and a cab driver. Agents recorded a key defendant claiming that all of them -- "less one or two" -- planned to participate in the at tack. In the end, prosecutors charged only four on the trip -- Duka; his brothers, Shain and Dri tan; and another man from Cherry Hill, Muhamad Ibrahim Shnewer. Those four and a fifth, Serdar Tatar of Philadelphia, were charged with terror conspiracy. A sixth defendant, Agron Abdullahu of Atlantic County, is accused of supplying guns to the plotters. With access to the house and informants embedded, FBI agents also had the opportunity to record nearly every minute of the suspects' activities on the weeklong trip. But the otherwise unusually detailed 25-page complaint has only sparse mentions of their conversations, and doesn't suggest the men viewed their Pocono retreat as a rehearsal or had agreed to attack Fort Dix. Last week, the attorney for one defendant argued the jaunt was more likely "a vacation" taken by gun enthusiasts. More details are likely to seep out in the coming months, as prosecutors and defense attor neys prepare for trial. Herman marvels at the whole episode. In her few, brief dealings with Duka, she said he was polite, even chatty. She remembers him asking for permission to take a dip in the house's indoor pool. "So they had time to drink and swim and plan a massacre," Herman mused. "It's crazy." 'A NICE AREA' TO TRAIN North of Allentown and south of Scranton, Gouldsboro straddles two townships that claim about 3,000 residents, a total that ebbs and flows depending on the season. Its biggest commodities might be the same ones all hamlets seek: peace, quiet, isolation. Small lakes dot the landscape, as does a 2,800-acre state park. An Army tank sits outside the local American Legion post, where veterans share drinks along a dark, smoky bar. There's a gas station, a convenience store and a shooting range. The Stars and Stripes fly from every other telephone pole on Main Street. Flags honoring U.S. prisoners of war hang on the rest. The suspects in the Fort Dix plot visited Gouldsboro at least once before, in January 2006, according to an FBI agent's affida vit filed May 8 with the charging documents. That trip was memorable enough that three of the men allegedly later downloaded video onto their laptops or cell phones that showed them firing weapons and yelling "jihad" at the secluded shooting range. One brought the footage to Circuit City in Mount Laurel and asked for copies. A clerk shared it with the police, and the FBI began investigating. By late summer, the criminal complaint said, Shnewer, began sharing pieces of the plot with an FBI informant. "My intent is to hit a heavy concentration of soldiers," Shnewer said in one recorded conversation, according to prosecutors. He also allegedly named the other conspirators -- the Duka brothers, who worked in a family roofing business, and Tatar, a store clerk -- and said the group knew of "a nice area where we can train" in Pennsylvania. "You are in the mountains in the Poconos," Shnewer told the man, a paid informant identified by investigators only as Cooperating Witness 1. "We went there for a week, walking in the mountains and shooting in the open shooting range." By the fall, plans for the trip took shape. A second paid FBI informant had befriended Eljvir Duka and his brothers, Shain and Dritan, illegal immigrants from the former Yugoslavia. That cooperator reported to agents in October that Shain Duka said they would travel to the Poconos "so that the group could shoot firearms," according to the complaint. On a Web site, Herman adver tises her house as the only one of its kind in the gated development called Big Bass Lake. Filling 5,000 square feet, the house sports a hot tub and sauna, a 62-inch television in the master suite and an outdoor fireplace "for roasting marshmallows." On Dec. 7, Eljvir Duka called her Blackwood home and asked if he could rent the Gouldsboro property for the first week of February. Herman recalls him saying he and friends planned "to hang out." She quoted the price -- almost $1,700 -- and offered to mail him a lease. But Duka asked if he could stop by her house with a deposit that day; he said he knew the neighborhood because he once ran a pizza parlor in Blackwood. Later that afternoon Duka gave Herman a $900 cash deposit. "We gave him iced tea; he was very friendly," Herman recalled. She said she booked the second renter about six weeks later. The caller -- a man whose name Herman would not disclose -- wanted the Gouldsboro property for three days starting Monday, Jan. 29. He gave her a Cherry Hill address for the application. But after she hung up, Her man said, she became curious about why the man sought the unusually short midweek rental in frigid temperatures. She called back, and discovered she had rented to an FBI agent. Herman said she asked why the FBI was interested in her house, but the agent suggested it wasn't for bureau business, just a getaway for friends. Special Agent J.J. Klaver, a spokesman for the FBI's Philadelphia division, which led the probe, declined to discuss details about the Poconos aspect of the investigation. "Yes, the FBI was there," Klaver said Friday. "We have to go where the bad guys go." WATCHING FROM THE SHADOWS At least five of the men on the trip, including one of the FBI informants, agreed to spend the night of Jan. 31 together at Dritan Duka's Cherry Hill home and leave for Pennsylvania the next day. Agents watched from the shadows as they arrived. One was Abdullahu, a 24-year-old legal permanent resident who emigrated from Macedo nia to South Jersey in 1999. Investigators trained their cameras on him as Abdullahu carried "rifle- style bags" into Duka's house, court documents say. During the night, Abdullahu and Shain Duka also allegedly traveled to Philadelphia to collect a semi-automatic rifle from an unidentified man. The next morning, the group left in a caravan for Gouldsboro, about 140 miles northwest of Cherry Hill. Prosecutors have declined to identify all the participants on the trip. At his news conference, Christie called the defendants "the core and soul" of the plot, but would not discuss the others. (In a court hearing last week, Abdullahu's attorney said he took his brothers, 13 and 18, on the trip; court documents indicate a fourth Duka brother who occasionally ac companied his brothers, but do not say if he went to Gouldsboro.) A day after arriving at Herman's rental house, the suspects braved the sub-freezing temperature to go to Pennsylvania State Game Land 127, a short drive outside the gated community. It's the same firing range shown in the January 2006 video that sparked the investiga tion. Between them, the men had four weapons: two semi-automatic rifles, a shotgun and a 9mm handgun. This time, though, law enforcement officers were the ones recording the scene, with video cameras and at least one undercover agent posing as a fellow sportsman. According to the criminal complaint, agents recorded Shain Duka directing others into firing positions and captured Abdullahu giv ing pointers on how to use a shot gun. One of the odder moments outlined in the FBI affidavit oc curred at a local convenience store early the next day. As Eljvir and Dritan Duka wandered into the store, they recognized another customer -- the undercover agent who had been at the firing range -- and began chatting with him about guns. They allegedly asked their new acquaintance if he knew where they could buy as sault rifles. Dritan Duka told the agent they wanted Russian AK-47s, not the cheaper Chinese version, be cause the Russian model was sturdier and easier to bury in the dirt or sand, according to the complaint. It's not clear how the agent responded. Later, the Dukas returned to the range. Agents gathered what appears to be some of their most damning evidence the next day, Super Bowl Sunday, when Shnewer ar rived with the first cooperating witness. A 21-year-old cab driver from Cherry Hill, Shnewer had for months been confiding details of the plot to the informant, an older man whom he believed had experience in the Egyptian military, according to the criminal complaint. Together they had allegedly scouted possible targets: U.S. military installations in New Jersey, Delaware and Philadelphia. Shnewer spent less than 24 hours at the Poconos retreat. His mother, Faten, said last week that her son didn't want to go to Pennsylvania but that the informant pressed him. She said the cooperator arrived at the family's house that Sunday afternoon, rousted Shnewer from a nap and told Shnewer he had rented a Jeep for the trip. "I do this just for you," the informant said, according to Faten Shnewer. VIDEO INSTRUCTION Prosecutors allege that on the ride to Gouldsboro, Shnewer discussed the Fort Dix plot and told the informant they could kill many people with rocket-propelled gre nades. Sometime later that day, they say, Shnewer opened his laptop at the rental house and showed oth ers in the house "terrorist training videos" he had downloaded. According to court documents filed by prosecutors, one showed al Qaeda attacking U.S. military vehicles in Iraq. When Shain Duka allegedly pointed out that one scene showed an American soldier's hand being blown off, "laughter erupted from the group," the complaint said. As night passed into morning, the informant allegedly recorded members of the group discussing bombs, nitroglycerin and C-4, an explosive-making material. The next day, some of the men re turned to the firearms range. Shnewer and the informant left for New Jersey. The rest of the group -- including a second FBI informant -- stayed for another three days, but the public record of what occurred or what was said is bare. According to Herman, Big Bass Lake security officers cited some of the men for speeding and improper use of a paint-ball gun on Tuesday, Feb. 6. She was given copies of the tickets. They also recovered a 9mm bullet casing in the driveway of Herman's home, but didn't pursue it because one of the men presented registration for a 9mm gun. Witnesses at the nearby Gould sboro Tavern said Abdullahu and a man named Vladimir spent several hours drinking vodka there one night that week. "The impression I got is they were relatives of some sort," said Christi Wood, the new owner who said she met the men. Another patron, Walter Perih, a veteran known as "Big Wall" be cause of his towering, bear-size frame, said he rebuked the immi grants for not speaking English, but also shot a round of pool with Vladimir and chatted with them. "They were just talking about drinking," Perih said. On the morning of Feb. 8, the Dukas drove back to Cherry Hill with the FBI informant. During the ride, they allegedly told the cooperator that they considered the Gouldsboro trip "a training mission." They hoped to go on a jihad overseas, they allegedly said. Agents arrested the subjects and announced the case after two of the Duka brothers bought seven assault rifles from one of the FBI informants during a sting on May 7. Five were charged with conspiring to kill soldiers; Abdul lahu was accused of aiding the conspiracy by supplying weapons to illegal immigrants. At a bail hearing last week for Abdullahu, Assistant Federal Public Defender Lisa Evans called the trip "a vacation" for her client and his brothers, and said that different people rotated through the house all week. "It was almost like an open house," she said. Abdullahu's former boss at a Williamstown supermarket testi fied that he recalled asking Ab dullahu about his trip to Pennsylvania. "He really didn't have a good time up there," the boss, Ray Million, testified. "(He said) it would be the last time he would go." Herman said the group broke some chairs and left behind other signs of minor disruption at the lake house. She has not heard back from the FBI. One night in late February, Herman was home alone in Blackwood when Eljvir Duka pulled up to her house. It was midnight. "He seemed trustwor thy enough, so I opened the door to him," she said. She said Duka handed her a check for $250 to cover the rental house damage. Then he bid her good night and drove off. Staff writers Judith Lucas and Jeff Whelan contributed to this report. C 2007 The Star Ledger C 2007 NJ.com All Rights Reserved. -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? Head on over to our discussion list, [EMAIL PROTECTED] -------------------------- Brooks Isoldi, editor [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.intellnet.org Post message: osint@yahoogroups.com Subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. 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