Dominican arrested on terrorist charges in USA

Two Americans, one of Dominican descent, with alleged links to terrorist groups, have been arrested at an airport in New York before boarding flights that would have taken them to join an extremist group in Somalia, officials said Sunday.

The detainees, Mohamed Mahmood Alessa, 20, and Carlos Eduardo Almonte, 26, are residents of New Jersey and were arrested at JFK airport on Saturday when they were about to board separate flights to Egypt before continuing their trip to Somalia, said a joint statement from federal officials and the NYPD.

The arrests were part of a lengthy investigation dubbed Operation Arabic Knight, in which a New York police officer infiltrated the group of friends of the suspects and followed the preparations for their trip.
The agent recorded conversations with men about jihad, or holy war, against America.
Investigators feared that the two young men could return to the U.S. to try an attack, said New York Police Commissioner, Raymond Kelly.

Kelly said both men are U.S. citizens. Alessa was born in the United States of Palestinian descent and  Almonte is a naturalized citizen born in the Dominican Republic.

Prosecutors accused Alessa, a resident of North Bergen, and Almonte of Elmwood Park, of conspiracy to kill, maim and kidnap people overseas. They said the men wanted to join al-Shabab, a Somali fundamentalist group linked to al-Qaida and described by the United States as a terrorist organization in 2008. The two must appear before a federal court in Newark on Monday.

Agents of state and federal forces had been investigating the detainees since 2006 officials said.. They had apparently been planning their trip for months. Officials said both had boasted that they wanted to participate in holy war against America, abroad and within the country. However, they were not planning an immediate attack in the area of New York and New Jersey, authorities said.

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