Fort Dix Attack Stopped By Attentive Clerk

It's somewhat scary, or frustrating depending on your view, that a store clerk is what enabled law enforcement to the arrests. And I did say law enforcement not military because the whole "fight them there so we don't have to fight them here" rhetoric failed.

(AP/ABC) The unidentified clerk is being credited with tipping off authorities in January 2006 after one of the suspects asked him to transfer a video to DVD that showed 10 men shooting weapons at a firing range and calling for jihad, prosecutors said.

"If we didn't get that tip," said U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie, "I couldn't be sure what would happen." FBI agent J.P. Weis called the clerk the "unsung hero" of the case.

In the process of fighting them there, we have created a whole new group that hates us.

Weis said the U.S. is seeing a "brand-new form of terrorism," involving smaller, more loosely defined groups that may not be connected to al-Qaida but are inspired by its ideology.

"These homegrown terrorists can prove to be as dangerous as any known group, if not more so. They operate under the radar," Weis said.

But let's keep believing that the war in Iraq is making us safer.