Six men remain in federal custody May 9 after their May 7 arrest in Cherry Hill, N.J., for allegedly plotting to attack U.S. soldiers at nearby Fort Dix with automatic weapons. The men — all in their 20s and all foreign-born — allegedly conducted pre-operational surveillance on their target and practiced their attack by playing paintball and shooting automatic weapons near the town of Gouldsboro in Pennsylvania's Pocono Mountains. The group got the FBI's attention in January 2006, when one of the suspects made an amateurish mistake that led U.S. law enforcement agencies to penetrate the cell and thwart the plot. If the men had been able to initiate an attack on Fort Dix, the episode would have very likely ended with their deaths, but not before they were able to wreak havoc on the post.
Largely because they would have had the element of surprise, the shooters would have had a clear advantage once the attack began. Depending on their target selection inside Fort Dix, they could have created a high body-count and caused significant confusion among responding forces. Once a defense was organized and mounted in earnest, the attackers would have lost any advantage and been killed. The training they reportedly underwent with paintball guns in no way reflects the reality of an open firefight. That "training" would have given them very little chance of holding out against trained and well-equipped military and police units.
As they planned the attack, the plotters allegedly considered a number of targets, including Fort Monmouth in New Jersey, Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, Naval Air Engineering Station Lakehurst in New Jersey and the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard. The choice of targets made strategic sense; they were primarily logistics and support facilities for U.S. military operations. While they lacked the symbolism of an attack on a government building in Washington or a bridge in New York City, an attack on any one of them would have been a direct blow — albeit a very, very small one — to U.S. military operations. The men settled on Fort Dix, a transport hub for mobilizing U.S. troops for deployment overseas. Most of these troops are reservists and many are on their way to Iraq. For the plotters, Fort Dix was a vulnerable target with the potential for a very high casualty count.
Tradecraft
The alleged plotters were very careful with some preparations for the attack, yet they made several amateur mistakes that eventually caused their plot to be thwarted. One example of good tradecraft on their part is the way in which they carried out their pre-operational surveillance. They were careful to be inconspicuous and had good cover while they carefully surveilled their prospective targets. They used cameras in cell phones to photograph potential targets; this is not as conspicuous as taking pictures of a military installation with a regular camera. Camera phone users can take photos while they appear to be making a phone call and can quickly erase any incriminating photos if confronted by security personnel. One of the alleged conspirators, Serdar Tatar, used to deliver pizzas on Fort Dix while working for the pizzeria owned by his family. His occupation allowed good cover for action while taking surveillance photos and gave him the chance to familiarize himself with Fort Dix's layout. As a deliveryman, Tatar could have smuggled the other five onto Fort Dix for the actual attack; his familiar face and vehicle would have been unlikely to arouse the suspicion of security forces. Furthermore, most of the alleged plotters were ethnic Albanians from the former Yugoslavia. Because of their European appearance, they would have aroused less suspicion than the "Middle Eastern male" description given in so many law enforcement profiles.
Fort Dix serves as a mobilization point for the vast majority of Army Reserve units deploying to Iraq and Afghanistan. The mobilization process includes training, medical and administrative preparations and then deployment. During this process, the entire unit is together, en masse, and is deeply vulnerable to attack unless outside security is provided. Therefore, deploying units are assigned a military police (MP) and Department of Defense (DoD) police escort to provide security while they muster and travel to the airport. However, this does not happen at Fort Dix, where there is virtually no security for deploying units. The first line of defense at most U.S. Army installations is a mixture of MP, DoD and Department of the Army police and security guards. No MP units are stationed at Fort Dix, which means DoD and Department of the Army police — who are just as capable as MPs — provide security. Most security forces on military bases have a Special Reaction Team (SRT) on site tasked with responding to any attack or serious breach of security. Bases without SRTs typically sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with a local police department for their tactical police units such as Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) and Hostage Rescue Teams (HRT) to provide assistance when needed. However, most tactical police units take up to an hour or more to arrive and deal with a situation, which helps little when a shooter is active. Fort Dix has no resident SRT, HRT or SWAT units. Any response would have had to come from the New Jersey State Police or local police departments.
If the six alleged conspirators had carried out their attack, they could have caused massive casualties before a response force arrived and killed them. If they planned to hit a unit that was deploying, their target would have been between 100 and 200 troops sitting in a gymnasium. An effective response to such an attack would take time to organize and mount, and the responding forces would have been confused, especially if the six men attacked in different locations. In attacks on U.S. Army installations — such as an incident in October 1995 when a mentally disturbed sergeant opened fire on a sports field at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, killing an officer and wounding 18 soldiers — the attackers have the advantage in that the only personnel armed during the normal course of their day are MP/DoD police and security guards. In facing an active shooter, military personnel are just as vulnerable as civilians, though they have training to protect themselves until the threat is neutralized.
Also, Army installations plan and prepare rigorously for an al Qaeda or Iraqi insurgent-style attack involving vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices and suicide attacks. Responders are often unprepared (at least mentally) to deal with an attack involving multiple shooters with automatic weapons, such as the plotters arrested on May 7 were allegedly planning. Even in the realm of firepower, MPs and DoD police are not equipped to respond effectively to such an attack. MPs and DoD police rarely carry anything more substantial than a Beretta or Glock 9mm handgun on regular patrols. In dealing with attackers wielding AK-47s, the police would be severely outmatched. In cases where a military base has an MoU with an outside law enforcement agency, a large obstacle to responding effectively to an attack is confusion among the military and civilian responders. Even on-site SRTs are trained and prepared to deal with a shooter or multiple shooters in one location, but six shooters spread to multiple locations would have caused significant confusion among the initial responders. All that being said, once a defense was organized and mounted, the attackers would not have had a chance. And any response to an attack on the base would be better now than it would have been five years ago, since every U.S. Army base is now full of veterans with multiple tours of urban combat in Iraq under their belts.
The Investigation
The alleged conspirators did exhibit poor tradecraft in several areas. The most blatant example of poor tradecraft was the January 2006 incident, when one of the suspects took a videotape to a store to be burned onto a DVD. The complaint filed in federal court says the tape showed the alleged plotters calling for "jihad" against the United States and practicing with "assault weapons." After being shown the tape by a representative of the store, federal authorities began an investigation. This blatant breach of operational security was the single event that began the group's downfall. The alleged conspirators also used poor tradecraft in their attempts to acquire weapons. They insisted on using AK-47s rather than cheaper and more readily available Chinese-made version of the Russian assault rifle, the SKS. Although not fully automatic like the AK-47, the SKS can be acquired legally, usually with few questions asked. Because they wanted fully automatic weapons, the alleged plotters believed they needed to buy them "off the street." This is what put them in touch with the FBI informant whom they believed to be willing to supply the weapons.
The FBI carried out a careful, well-orchestrated investigation. Three months after the tape came to their attention, the FBI penetrated the group with a paid informant who posed as someone who could supply the plotters with weapons. The penetration was so successful that the group actually trusted the informant more than another individual they were discussing weapons purchases with. They canceled a sale because they erroneously believed that seller to be an undercover FBI agent. The alleged would-be attackers' plan had several things going for it — fairly good operational security, good pre-operational surveillance, cover for action and good target selection. However, the plan developed several problems, such as the men's insistence on illegally-acquired weapons, and the level to which the FBI was able to penetrate the group. However, if they had never committed the monumental mistake of taking a videotape of their activities to a store to be made into a DVD, the men could have escaped notice until it was too late.
