Experts doubt credibility of JFK terror plot [View All]

NEW YORK (AFP) - An alleged plot to blow up fuel tanks and pipelines at New York's JFK airport had little chance of success, according to safety experts, who have questioned whether the plot ever posed a real threat. US authorities said Saturday they had averted an attack that could have resulted in "unfathomable damage, deaths, and destruction," and charged four alleged Islamic radicals with conspiracy to cause an explosion at the airport.

But according to the experts, it would have been next to impossible to cause an explosion in the jet fuel tanks and pipeline. Furthermore, the plotters seem to have lacked the explosives and financial backing to carry out the attack. John Goglia, a former member of National Transportation Safety Board, said that if the plot had ever been carried out, it would likely have sparked a fire but little else, and certainly not the mass carnage authorities described.

"You could definitely reach the tank, definitely start the fire, but to get the kind of explosion that they were thinking that they were going to get... this is virtually impossible to do," he told AFP.

Besides the alleged plotters' capability, other questions have focused on the main source in the probe -- a convicted drug dealer who infiltrated the group and whose sentence was pending as part of his cooperation with police.

Neal Sonnett, a former federal prosecutor, told the New York Times there was also a danger in overstating how serious or sophisticated a plot really was. "There unfortunately has been a tendency to shout too loudly about such cases," he said. "To the extent that you over-hype a case, you create fear and paranoia," he said.

The New York Times on Sunday pointedly avoided giving much coverage to the alleged plot, devoting only a brief on its front page continued on the local section, despite the story breaking in the early afternoon on Saturday.


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