Riverdale Temple Terror Plot: Been There, Done That

Prosecutors branded the gang as bloodthirsty anti-Semitic killers during a brief hearing in federal court, and a fourth suspect was expected to appear later in the afternoon.

"It's hard to envisage a more chilling plot to bring murder to a . . . community," said Eric Snyder, an assistant U.S. attorney.

"These are extremely violent men," he added. "These people who are eager to bring death to Jews." (Daily News)

An official said three of the men are converts to Islam. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to discuss details of the investigation. Three of the defendants are U.S. citizens and one is of Haitian descent, officials said. More on this angle here.

Since I've attended services at that Jewish community center, and flew in and out of Stewart Airport last summer, I guess I join the moving Jewish target club. Ah - also Israeli. Trifecta!

That's about as snarky as I'll get here, since the threat is real, current and constant:

NEW YORK (JTA) -- Lone attackers or small, independent groups with no formal ties to wider terrorist networks have planned several plots against Jewish targets.

March 1, 1994 -- Lebanese-born Rashid Baz opens fire on a van carrying 15 Chabad-Lubavitch rabbinical seminary students on the Brooklyn Bridge, killing Ari Halberstam, 16, and injuring three others. Raz claims he was upset by the killing of 29 Muslim worshipers in Hebron by an Israeli Jew, Baruch Goldstein, a few days earlier. Baz is convicted of second-degree murder and 14 counts of attempted murder and sentenced to 141 years in prison

March 20, 1994 -- Members of the neo-Nazi Volksfront group fire 10 shots into a synagogue in Eugene, Ore., damaging its interior. Police said the attack on Temple Beth Israel was motivated by a newspaper article about several prominent members.

June 18, 1999 -- White supremacists Benjamin Matthew Williams and James Tyler Williams set fire to three synagogues in the Sacramento area. The arson attacks cause more than $1 million in damage. The Williams brothers later go on to kill a gay couple in Redding, Calif. Benjamin Williams commits suicide in prison in November 2002.

July 4th weekend, 1999 -- White supremacist Benjamin Nathaniel Smith carries out a three-day, two-state shooting spree in the Chicago area, wounding six Orthodox Jews and several blacks and Asians. One black man and one Korean man are killed. Smith later committs suicide. Smith belonged to a white supremacist group, the World Church of the Creator, which espouses hatred against non-whites.

Aug. 10, 1999 -- White supremacist Buford O. Furrow Jr. walks into the lobby of the North Valley Jewish Community Center in Granada Hills, Calif., and fires 70 shots into the building before fleeing; fire people are wounded. Furrow later kills a mail carrier. Furrow, a native of Washington state, considered targeting three Jewish institutions: the Skirball Cultural Center, the American Jewish University and the Simon Wiesenthal Center's Museum of Tolerance. When security measures prove prohibitive, he drives to the San Fernando Valley with the stated purpose of “killing Jews,” police said.

July 4, 2002 -- Egyptian immigrant Hesham Mohamed Hadeyet shoots and kills two at Los Angeles International Airport at the El Al airline counter. Police said the shooting was motivated by a mixture of the personal and the political; Hadeyet was suffering financial problems related to a struggling limousine business and worried about his aging parents, but he also opposed Israel’s occupation of West Bank territory.

Oct. 25, 2002 -- Five men, all Volksfront members, drive to Temple Beth Israel synagogue in Eugene, Ore., with the intention of intimidating congregants. During a service with 80 worshipers, the men throw rocks etched with swastikas through the building’s stained-glass windows. They are caught later.

2005-2007 -- Temple Beth Israel in Niagara Falls, N.Y., is targeted consistently by vandals who paint swastikas and urinate on the building. On Jan. 12, 2007, “Kill the Jews” is duct-taped to the building’s door. In August 2007, the perpetrator, Shawn Blount, is sentenced to one to three years in prison; his co-conspirator, a juvenile, is sentenced as a youthful offender to one year in Niagara County Jail.

Aug. 31, 2005 -- Four men are charged with plotting a series of attacks on military and Jewish targets in Los Angeles. Kevin Lamar James had founded a group in prison called Jamiyyat Ul Islam Is Saheeh and preached to members that it was their duty to attack the U.S. government and supporters of Israel. Once released from prison, one of James' followers, Levar Haley Washington, recruits Gregory Vernon Patterson and Hamad Riaz Samana to help him carry out the attacks. Washington and Patterson are arrested on suspicion of committing a series of gas station robberies, and investigators then discover evidence of a terrorist plot. The men had conducted research on a variety of Jewish targets, including El Al Airlines and the Israeli Consulate in Los Angeles, and planned to carry out an attack on a synagogue on Yom Kippur in order to maximize casualties. Patterson, Washington and James have all pleaded guilty to terrorism conspiracy charges; the fourth defendant was declared mentally unfit to stand trial.

July 28, 2006 -- Naveed Afzal Haq shoots six women at the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle building, one fatally. Witnesses said Haq told them, "I'm a Muslim American, I'm angry at Israel." One of the victims reported that Haq said "this was his personal statement against Jews and the Bush administration for giving money to Jews," and for Jews "giving money to Israel"

May 20, 2009 -- Authorities arrest four men in connection with a plot to bomb two synagogues in the Bronx, N.Y., and shoot down military planes at an Air National Guard base in Newburgh, N.Y. Law enforcement said the group had planned to use missiles to attack the planes and planted what they believed were car bombs outside the synagogues in the Riverdale section. During the course of the elaborate FBI sting operation, faulty explosives had been provided to the would-be terrorists. Police said the four, all of whom had a history of petty crime and are not believed to be tied to any major terrorist networks, frequently talked about their anti-Semitic leanings.

(Source: JTA)