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Six men remain in federal custody May 9 for allegedly plotting to attack the U.S. Army's Fort Dix in New Jersey. The base's lack of security, combined with the presence of many unarmed soldiers...

Six men remain in federal custody May 9 after their May 7 arrest in Cherry Hill, N.J., for allegedly plotting to attack U.S. soldiers at nearby Fort Dix with automatic weapons.

The men -- all in their 20s and all foreign-born -- allegedly conducted pre-operational surveillance on their target and practiced their attack by playing paintball and shooting automatic weapons near the town of Gouldsboro in Pennsylvania's Pocono Mountains.

The group got the FBI's attention in January 2006, when one of the suspects made an amateurish mistake that led U.S. law enforcement agencies to penetrate the cell and thwart the plot. If the men had been able to initiate an attack on Fort Dix, the episode would have very likely ended with their deaths, but not before they were able to wreak havoc on the post.

Largely because they would have had the element of surprise, the shooters would have had a clear advantage once the attack began. Depending on their target selection inside Fort Dix, they could have created a high body-count and caused significant confusion among responding forces. Once a defense was organized and mounted in earnest, the attackers would have lost any advantage and been killed. The training they reportedly underwent with paintball guns in no way reflects the reality of an open firefight. That "training" would have given them very little chance of holding out against trained and well-equipped military and police units.

As they planned the attack, the plotters allegedly considered a number of targets, including Fort Monmouth in New Jersey, Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, Naval Air Engineering Station Lakehurst in New Jersey and the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard. The choice of targets made strategic sense; they were primarily logistics and support facilities for U.S. military operations. While they lacked the symbolism of an attack on a government building in Washington or a bridge in New York City, an attack on any one of them would have been a direct blow -- albeit a very, very small one -- to U.S. military operations. The men settled on Fort Dix, a transport hub for mobilizing U.S. troops for deployment overseas. Most of these troops are reservists and many are on their way to Iraq. For the plotters, Fort Dix was a vulnerable target with the potential for a very high casualty count.

Tradecraft

The alleged plotters were very careful with some preparations for the attack, yet they made several amateur mistakes that eventually caused their plot to be thwarted. One example of good tradecraft on their part is the way in which they carried out their pre-operational surveillance. They were careful to be inconspicuous and had good cover while they carefully surveilled their prospective targets. They used cameras in cell phones to photograph potential targets; this is not as conspicuous as taking pictures of a military installation with a regular camera. Camera phone users can take photos while they appear to be making a phone call and can quickly erase any incriminating photos if confronted by security personnel.