Millennium Ark: Hot News

December 11, 2009
Julie Tate
Wash. Post

Dec. 7, 2009

David C. Headley is charged in Chicago in a terrorism plot against a Danish newspaper. The indictment also alleged that he conducted extensive surveillance of targets in Mumbai for more than two years preceding the November 2008 terrorist attack in the Indian city.

November 2009

Fourteen people are charged in Minnesota with recruiting youths from U.S. communities to train with or fight on behalf of terrorism groups in Somalia.

Nov. 5, 2009

Maj. Nidal M. Hasan, a U.S. Army psychiatrist of Palestinian descent, kills 13 people on the Fort Hood, Tex., military post and injures dozens. Investigators continue to examine whether he had links to radical Islamists or al-Qaeda.

Oct. 21, 2009

Tarek Mehanna is arrested in Boston and charged with plotting to bomb shopping malls and conspiring to kill politicians.

Sept. 23, 2009

Najibullah Zazi, an Afghan-born Colorado resident, is charged with planning a bombing attack in the United States.

Sept. 24, 2009

Hosam Maher Husein Smadi, a 19-year-old Jordanian man, is arrested in Dallas on suspicion of attempting to detonate a truck bomb outside a skyscraper in the city.

July 27, 2009

Daniel P. Boyd, a North Carolina resident, and six others are charged with conspiring to provide material support to terrorists. Boyd allegedly had spent time training at terrorist camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan. He was also charged with conspiring to recruit young American men and help them travel overseas in order to kill or maim.

June 2007

The FBI disrupts an ideologically inspired terrorism plot to allegedly destroy fuel supplies and pipelines at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York.

May 8, 2007

A plot to bomb the Fort Dix military base in New Jersey is thwarted. Dritan Duka, Shain Duka, Eljvir Duka, Mohamad Ibrahim Shnewer, Serdar Tatar and Agron Abdullahu are arrested. On Dec. 22, 2008, they were found guilty of conspiracy to harm military personnel.

Feb. 13, 2007

Daniel Maldonado, a former Houston resident, is indicted on charges of conspiring to train with al-Qaeda in Somalia. He is deported from Kenya to the United States. He was convicted of receiving training from a foreign terrorist organization and was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

June 23, 2006

Seven men are charged in Miami with plotting to bomb the Sears Tower in Chicago and a federal building in Miami. The indictment charged that four of the men sought help from al-Qaeda. FBI Deputy Director John Pistole called the plot "more aspirational than operational."

August 2005

Kevin James, an inmate in a California state prison, and three others are charged with forming a domestic terrorist group that planned to attack U.S. military installations, "infidels," and Israeli and Jewish facilities in the Los Angeles area.

May 8, 2002

Jose Padilla is arrested at Chicago O'Hare International Airport on a material witness warrant. At the time, he was alleged to have been plotting a radiological "dirty bomb" attack. He was later alleged to have conspired with al-Qaeda to blow up apartment buildings with natural gas. He was convicted (with two co-defendants) in January 2008 of "conspiracy to murder, maim or kidnap." He was sentenced to 17 years in prison.

-- Julie Tate

Sources: News reports and court documents

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/10/AR2009121004677.html