Two men appeared in court in chains Monday to be charged with conspiracy to kill American troops abroad in what has been described by officials as the nation's latest terror probe.
Mohamed Alessa, 20, and Carlos Almonte, 24, were arrested late Saturday at New York's John F. Kennedy airport as they sought to board planes to Egypt, with plans to travel on to Somalia, justice officials said.
The tall, bearded men appeared before judge Madeline Cox Arleo who read them their rights.
Prosecutors read out the charges in which they are accused of hatching a plot to commit the "murder, kidnapping and maiming" of US citizens, "at a place outside the United States."
The men allegedly had boarded a plane for Egypt and planned to travel to Somalia to join Al-Shabaab, an organization of several thousand fighters with ties to Al-Qaeda. But it seemed they had no detailed plan.
"At no time was the public in danger for those defendants," stressed New Jersey attorney Paul Fishman, speaking outside the court house.
He highlighted however that "sophistication is not necessarily a measure of danger" -- with at least two recent botched attacks in the United States appearing to have been crudely fashioned together.
Fishman confirmed family members were helping with the investigation, adding that both men "resisted arrest" on Saturday at the airport.
The charges carry a maximum term of life imprisonment and the prosecutors urged the court to return the men to jail pending trial, saying they represented a flight risk and a danger to the community.
The judge ordered them held until Thursday for a bail hearing. No pleas were entered to the charges, and a preliminary hearing was set for June 21.
Authorities said Sunday the men were caught as part of an undercover operation that spanned some three-and-a-half years, after being tipped off by an informant through the Federal Bureau of Investigation's website.
The two men had trained in "various hand-to-hand fighting tactics," as well as in the simulated use of weapons, according to an affidavit from an FBI agent investigating the case.
They also were secretly recorded making statements "promoting violent jihad."
The arrests follow a spate of failed attacks on US soil, including an attempted car bombing in Times Square by a Pakistani-born American on May 3 and the failed Christmas Day bombing of an airliner over Detroit by a Nigerian with explosives in his underwear.
Copyright 2010 AFP American Edition
