Four men charged in terror plot against JFK airport

On Saturday, four men were charged with planning to blow up New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport. “The plotters sought to blow up the airport’s jet fuel tanks and part of the 40-mile pipeline feeding them from New Jersey,” reports Reuters. The plot was foiled by an informant who recorded conversations between the men as recently as last month.

The plan appears to have been in preliminary stages, though the men had compiled extensive video and photographic surveillance and satellite images. If successful, the plot would have caused major devastation, as JFK handles more than 1,000 flights per day, but officials say much of the idea was unrealistic, and the airport was not in any real danger.

Three of the four suspects (including one former U.S. airline cargo handler) are from the Caribbean nation Guyana, and the fourth is from Trinidad. Officials say there is no known connection to al Qaeda, and the plan may have been backed by Jamaat Al Muslimeen, a Muslim group behind a 1990 coup attempt in Trinidad.