Electronics store worker gave Fort Dix tipoff

updated 7:22 p.m. ET May 9, 2007

MOUNT LAUREL, N.J. - A Circuit City spokeswoman has confirmed an employee at the electronics chain's Mount Laurel store tipped off police about a video showing men firing assault weapons and screaming about jihad.

Spokeswoman Jackie Foreman said the store is not releasing the name of the employee. Foreman said the employee still works for the company, but she would not say where.

Six foreign-born Muslims were accused Tuesday of planning to assault the Army base and slaughter scores of U.S. soldiers with automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades.

The unidentified clerk is being credited with tipping off authorities in January 2006 after one of the suspects asked him to transfer a video to DVD that showed 10 men shooting weapons at a firing range and calling for jihad, prosecutors said.

“If we didn’t get that tip,” said U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie, “I couldn’t be sure what would happen.” FBI agent J.P. Weis called the clerk the “unsung hero” of the case.

Authorities said there was no direct evidence connecting the men to any international terror organizations such as al-Qaida. But several of them said they were ready to kill and die “in the name of Allah,” prosecutors said in court papers.

FBI agent: ‘Brand-new’ terrorism
Weis said the U.S. is seeing a “brand-new form of terrorism,” involving smaller, more loosely defined groups that may not be connected to al-Qaida but are inspired by its ideology.

“These homegrown terrorists can prove to be as dangerous as any known group, if not more so. They operate under the radar,” Weis said.

Four of the arrested men were born in the former Yugoslavia, one was born in Jordan and one came from Turkey, authorities said. Three were in the United States illegally; two had green cards allowing them to stay in this country permanently; and the sixth is a U.S. citizen.

The six — Mohamad Ibrahim Shnewer, 22; Dritan “Anthony” or “Tony” Duka, 28; Shain Duka, 26; Eljvir “Elvis” Duka, 23; Serdar Tatar, 23; and Agron Abdullahu, 24 — were ordered held without bail for a hearing Friday.

Five were charged with conspiracy to kill U.S. military personnel; the sixth, Abdullahu, was charged with aiding and abetting illegal immigrants in obtaining weapons.

Pizza deliveries to base
One of the suspects, Tatar, worked at his father’s pizzeria — Super Mario’s Restaurant — in Cookstown and made deliveries to the base, using the opportunity to scout out Fort Dix for an attack, authorities said.

“Clearly, one of the guys had an intimate knowledge of the base from having been there delivering pizzas,” Christie said.

Tatar’s father, Muslim Tatar, 54, said the accusations against his son were hard to accept.

“He is not a terrorist. I am not a terrorist,” he told The Star-Ledger of Newark.

The elder Tatar told ABC News he had gotten no indication his son harbored a deep hatred of the United States.

“I came here from Turkey in 1992, and this is my country. I love this country,” Muslim Tatar told ABC.

The group often watched terror training videos, clips featuring Osama bin Laden, a tape containing the last will and testament of some of the Sept. 11 hijackers, and tapes of armed attacks on U.S. military personnel, authorities said.

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