5 Men Convicted in Plot to Kill Soldiers at Fort Dix

After infiltrating the group, the informants obtained hundreds of hours of audio and video recordings that prosecutors used to assert that the men were serious about the plot. Federal authorities said that in addition to targeting Fort Dix, the cell discussed attacking other military installations, including Fort Monmouth, Lakehurst Naval Air Station and McGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey, the U.S. Coast Guard building in Philadelphia and Dover Air Force Base in Delaware.

Another potential target was the annual Army-Navy football game in Philadelphia, prosecutors charged.

The group focused on Fort Dix in part because Tatar was intimately familiar with it, having delivered pizzas there from a nearby restaurant owned by his father, the prosecution said, citing recorded conversations.

Dritan and Shain Duka were arrested May 7, 2007, as they were meeting a man they believed was a black-market arms dealer to buy three AK-47 assault rifles, four M-16 rifles and four handguns for the planned attack, the government said. The weapons were provided by the FBI for a controlled purchase and were inoperable.

Also arrested at the time was Agron Abdullahu, 25, of Buena Vista Township, N.J., a supermarket employee who, like the Duka brothers, is an ethnic Albanian born in the former Yugoslavia. Abdullahu, a legal immigrant, pleaded guilty to weapons charges in the case.

Shnewer's mother, Faten Shnewer, charged after yesterday's verdict that the five were convicted solely because they are Muslims, and she blamed the plot on the FBI informants. Defense attorneys also attacked the informants at trial, noting that both had previously run afoul of the law and had immigration problems.

Marra, the acting U.S. attorney, rejected the idea that religious bias played a role in the verdict.