Alleged terror plotters arrested in Miami raid
MIAMI – Seven men, some of whom lived in a Liberty City warehouse, have been arrested as potential homegrown terrorist sympathizers who discussed blowing up Chicago’s Sears Tower and FBI headquarters in Miami-Dade County, multiple sources told the Miami Herald on Thursday.
They posed no immediate danger to the community, federal officials said Thursday. Details will be revealed today at a press conference in Washington.
Agents must now figure out if the men were actually capable of mounting attacks. Several sources described them as homegrown wannabes with no known connection to foreign terrorists. No explosives or guns were found, sources said.
Officials didn’t release the names of the men Thursday. Law enforcement sources said some of the men’s discussions have been heard on wiretaps.
Five of those arrested are U.S. citizens, one is a resident alien and one is an illegal immigrant, a law enforcement source told the Miami Herald on condition of anonymity.
Citing an investigation before Thursday’s raid, the source said the group talked about an attack on the Sears Tower and the FBI headquarters located in North Miami Beach – but that they had no “overt explosives or other things.”
The group thought that they “were doing the attacks in conjunction with al-Qaida” but were really dealing with undercover law enforcement, the official said.
It was “pretty much talk, we were on top of them,” the source said.
Family identified one of the men arrested as Stanley Phanor, 31, who called the warehouse the group’s place of worship.
“It’s really nothing. It’s a church thing they’re in,” said his disbelieving sister, Marlene Phanor.
Miami police and the FBI declined to comment.
Neighbors near the warehouse described the men as dressing in fatigues and talking about giving their lives to God.
“They said it was a karate school,” Benjamin Williams, 17, said of the warehouse. “They used to be out around 11 at night, practicing like they were in the military or something … push-ups, jumping jacks and jumping over chairs.”
News of the raid immediately reverberated around the nation. FBI Director Robert Mueller appeared on CNN but offered few details.
“But whenever we undertake an operation like this, we would not do it without the approval of a judge. We’ve got search warrants and arrest warrants and the like,” Mueller told host Larry King.
Federal agents, assisted by Miami police’s SWAT team, swarmed in Thursday afternoon, cordoning off several blocks around the building, in an area known by locals as the Pork-n-Beans Projects.
South Florida has been at the center of several key terrorism cases, starting with the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. As many as 14 of the 19 Sept. 11 hijackers, including ringleader Mohamed Atta, lived in Broward County in the weeks before the four planes were hijacked.