Real Crime/Paranormal/Conspiracy Theories Book III

Operation Arabian Knight

The Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF)coordinated the arrests. JTTF agents were in place near the suspects'New Jersey homes before the arrests. As soon as the men were takeninto custody, dozens of agents raided the two homes, taking awayboxes of evidence. Federal counter-terrorism officials said theinvestigation was ongoing, and that more arrests were anticipated.

Suspects

The parents have characterized the menas "troublemakers" and school records of themdocument a history of behavioral problems, threats and violence.

Mohamed Mahmood Alessa

Alessa was born in Jersey City, NewJersey, to Palestinian and Jordanian immigrant parents. He has dualUnited States-Jordanian citizenship, was living in North Bergen, NewJersey, and was 20 years old at the time of his arrest. After theSeptember 11, 2001, attacks when other families on his blockdisplayed American flags, his home hung a Palestinian flag. Aneighbor, Luis Lainez, said: "not ... very patriotic, thatputs up a red flag at the end of the day."

Alessa reportedly began to tell otherchildren in his Boy Scout troop that Osama bin Laden was a hero inhis family, and that he wanted to grow up to be a martyr. When otherboys and their parents complained, he was asked to leave the group.As a teenager, he began to spend time with a gang who calledthemselves the P.L.O., after the Palestinian group, or the ArabianKnights.

Alessa's parents sent him for the ninthgrade to the Al-Huda High School, a private Islamic religious highschool in Paterson, New Jersey. He transferred to North Bergen HighSchool in December 2004. Within three months, he was placed onadministrative "home instruction," to be supervisedby a security officer, because of "radicalized behavior thatwas very threatening," according to a school spokesman. InSeptember 2005, he transferred to KAS Prep, an alternative highschool for troubled youth in North Bergen, which he attended for onesemester. He returned to North Bergen High School in March 2006. Theschool officials soon placed him on home instruction supervised by asecurity officer. Through 2005 and 2006, officials of both NorthBergen and KAS Prep alerted the Department of Homeland Security aboutAlessa's escalating series of threats. The Islamic Center of EastOrange asked for and received his transcript in October 2007, but its not clear whether he attended the school.

Alessa attended Bergen CommunityCollege from the Spring of 2009 through the Spring of 2010. Officials at several schools described him as violent.

Neighbors thought he was an observantMuslim, though one said he had seen Alessa drink alcohol, which isprohibited. While his beard was generally long, Alessa occasionallyshaved it off, according to the neighbor. His landlord said Alessahad visited Jordan about two years prior to his arrest, for sixmonths.

Alessa reportedly said: "Theyonly fear you when you have a gun and when you — when you startkilling them, and when you — when you take their head, and you golike this, and you behead it on camera." He discussedcarrying out a suicide bombing in the U.S., adding: "We'llstart doing killing here, if I can't do it over there." And: "Only way I would come back here is if I was in the landof jihad and the leader ordered me to come back here and do somethinghere. Ah, I love that."

He allegedly would brandish a largeknife and boast to family members about killing U.S. Agents. Speaking of Nidal Malik Hasan, the US Army psychiatrist who killed 13Americans at Fort Hood in 2009, Alessa said he would outdo him: "He'snot better than me. I'll do twice what he did." Accordingto court documents, he also said: "A lot of people need toget killed, bro. Swear to God.... My soul cannot rest until I shedblood. I wanna, like, be the world's [best] known terrorist."