FBI Raid in Miami

From the Miami Herald:

FBI agents backed by state and local law enforcement cordoned off an area of Liberty City and made several arrests on Thursday as part of what U.S. officials called a significant terror-related investigation.

There was no immediate threat to Miami, officials said. Formal details on the raid, which apparently focused on a warehouse, were to be released by U.S. officials at news conferences set for Friday in Miami and Washington.

[...]

"The individuals arrested posed no immediate threat to our community," the U.S. Attorney's Office said.

One law enforcement source said authorities arrested seven people who allegedly were conspiring to conduct attacks in the United States -- but that there was no immediate threat.

Five of those arrested are U.S. residents, one is a resident alien and one is an illegal alien, the source told the Miami Herald on condition of anonymity.

Citing an investigation before Thursday's raid, the source said the group talked about an attack on the Sears Tower in Chicago and the FBI building in Miami -- but that they had no "overt explosives or other things."

The group thought that they "were doing (the attacks) in conjunction with al Qaeda" [sic] but were really dealing with" undercover law enforcement, the official said.

It was "pretty much talk, we were on top of them," the source said.

A man who lives across the street from the warehouse where the search warrant was served described the suspects as an unusual group of men, almost cultist, who wore military-style clothes and kept to themselves.

"They reminded me a lot of the followers of Yahweh Ben Yahweh," he said, referring to a cult of Muslim that flourished in Miami's Liberty City in the 1980. That group was led by a man known as Brother Love, who ordered followers to murder opponents and spawned a reign of terror in the neighborhood.

These guys don't sound especially swift. Parading around in military-style clothing kind of stands out in Liberty City, which is not what you want to do if you're going to be covert. But then again, a certain terrorist who is six-feet-five and on dialysis has been eluding capture in Afghanistan or Pakistan or wherever for five years, so, who knows.