Seven Arrested In Sears Tower Terror Plot
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
MIAMI – Seven people were arrested yesterday in connection with the early stages of a plot to attack Chicago’s Sears Tower and other buildings in America, including the FBI office here, a federal law enforcement official said.
As part of the raids related to the arrests, FBI agents swarmed a warehouse in Miami’s Liberty City area, using a blowtorch to take off a metal door.
The official told the Associated Press the alleged plotters were mainly Americans with no apparent ties to Al Qaeda or other foreign terrorist organizations. He spoke on condition of anonymity so as not to pre-empt news conferences planned for today in Washington and Miami.
Miami U.S. Attorney R. Alexander Acosta said in a statement that the investigation was an ongoing operation and that more details would be released Friday.
[The New York Police Department’s chief spokesman, Paul Browne, last night said that the police were aware of the investigation in Florida, but hadn’t changed its counterterrorism stance.]
“There is no imminent threat to Miami or any other area because of these operations,” the spokesman for FBI headquarters in Washington, Richard Kolko, said.
Residents living near the warehouse said the men taken into custody described themselves as Mulims and had tried to recruit young people to join their group, which seemed militaristic.
The residents said FBI agents spent several hours in the neighborhood showing photos of the suspects and seeking information. They said the men had lived in the area about a year.
The men slept in the warehouse, said Tashawn Rose, 29. “They would come out late at night and exercise. It seemed like a military boot camp that they were working on there. They would come out and stand guard.”