Feds: Man Plotted Terror Attack On Mass Transit
July 22, 2009 by national
Filed under Incident Reports
A young man whose journey from Patchogue to Pakistan took him to an al-Qaida training camp and an attack on a U.S. military base emerged yesterday as a key player in al-Qaida plots against area mass transit systems, as he continued to cooperate in multiple investigations of international terrorism.
Bryant Neal Vinas, 26, was captured in Pakistan in November. He pleaded guilty secretly in January to aiding in a 2008 rocket attack on U.S. troops in Afghanistan, training with al-Qaida and supplying information on city subways and the Long Island Rail Road to the terrorist group, according to Brooklyn federal court records unsealed yesterday.
Following in the footsteps of previous American terror trainees such as John Walker Lindh and Jose Padilla, the licensed truck driver who grew up in Medford provided information after his arrest in Peshawar that led to a warning to area commuters in November about a possible attack on mass transit, law enforcement officials told Newsday.
“He . . . turned on his country,” one official said, calling Vinas “the real deal.”
Predator Drone ‘UAV’ On Long Island Sparks Terror Investigation
August 22, 2008 by national
Filed under Homeland Security News
Predator Drone ‘UAV’ On Long Island Sparks Terror Investigation – Investigators said the drone was being designed to carry 600 pounds of explosives. Jonathan Dienst breaks the story for WNBC.com
A predator drone being built by an engineer on Long Island sparked a large counter-terrorism investigation across the New York area, officials tell WNBC.com. Police said they had stumbled upon overnight testing of the drone at a little-used airstrip in Calverton, Long Island. Read more
