On recording, Dix suspects talked of holy war - Navy News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Navy Times

On recording, Dix suspects talked of holy war

CAMDEN, N.J. — One of the five men accused of plotting to attack soldiers on Fort Dix decided that it was time to bring holy war to American soil after watching an Islamist lecture, a government informant told jurors on Wednesday.

On a recording informant Besnik Bakalli made in March 2007, he can be heard asking Dritan Duka where he wanted to strike.

“I say here because he gave the fatwa,” or permission, Duka responds. “Hit them here.”

With the recording played on Wednesday, the 23rd day of the trial against the accused plotters and the third with Bakalli testifying for the government, prosecutors offered jurors some of the most persuasive evidence to date that the men were planning an attack in the U.S.

Recordings played earlier in the trial captured another informant and another suspect talking at length about possible military targets. But Wednesday’s was different because Duka did not seem to be prompted to speak by the man being paid by the government.

The defendants, all foreign-born Muslims who have lived for years in the comfortable Philadelphia suburb of Cherry Hill, are charged with conspiring to kill military personnel, attempted murder and weapons offenses.

No attack was carried out by the time the men were arrested in May 2007.

The men, who were all in their 20s when they were arrested, could face life in prison if they’re convicted.

Defense lawyers say that while the men talked about jihad, or holy war, and guns, they were not seriously planning anything.

The March 10, 2007 recording in which Duka declared “hit them here” was made one day after another recording captured Bakalli and a group of men, including three of the defendants, watching a video version of “Constants of Jihad,” a lecture by Anwar al-Awlaki, a Yemeni imam who lived in the United States for a time.

Bakalli said the men took an important message from the talk: “The time is now.”

Bakalli told jurors that Dritan Duka believed that the lecture gave a fatwa — or religious order — to strike in the United States.

On earlier recordings with the brothers Dritan, Eljvir and Shain Duka talking about preparing for holy war, they say they want to fight abroad on behalf of Islam.

But on the recording played Wednesday, they talk about a different sort of attack.

“We need the RPGs,” or rocket-propelled grenades, Dritan Duka says on the recording. “Because we have enough people. We are seven of us.”

He also tells Bakalli a timeline: “It’s something that will take six months to a year.”

In the same conversation, though, Shain Duka talks about a more modest way to help fight nations that oppress Muslims. “If nothing else, we have to send money” to mujahedeen fighting for Islam elsewhere, he says.

Also on Wednesday, defense lawyer Rocco Cipparone began cross-examining Bakalli, an Albanian national who said he was paid between $12,000 and $13,000 and given immigration help in exchange for his work for the FBI.

Cipparone asked about details of the plans to attack military targets.

“We talked about jihad,” Bakalli said. “But no Fort Dix, no bombing this and bombing that.”