Our Rights On the Line - Still

The cops and G-men who busted a gang of homegrown terrorists before they could blow up two Bronx synagogues got a big pat on the back Friday from a grateful city.

"I feel safer in the city today than ever before," Mayor Bloomberg said at a City Hall ceremony to honor the heroes. "They have prevented what could have been a terrible loss of life."

Gov. Paterson called the plot "one of the most heinous crimes that has been [planned] in this city for a long time."

And Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly called the police and FBI response "a textbook example of how a major investigation should be handled."

The case is the latest in a series in New York and around the country since Sept. 11, 2001, and sounded familiar in some ways. The investigation, for instance, began with the work of a confidential informant, who portrayed himself as an agent of a Pakistani terror organization, and who became a critical member of the men's plot.

The full nature and extent of the informant's role in facilitating the plot is unknown. In other cases, defense lawyers have sought to portray these informants as engaging in entrapment, suggesting they had, in effect, provoked and fueled the actions of their clients.

That man is now understood to have been Shahed Hussain, a former New York state motel owner who became an FBI informant in 2002 to avoid deportation to Pakistan after being arrested on fraud charges. Hussain appears to have met Cromitie at a Newburgh mosque where the plot to bomb Jewish targets was hatched.

With Hussain's help, the FBI was able to monitor every move made by Cromitie and the others. Hussain also provided the group with bogus C4 explosive and a fake Stinger missile and launcher supplied by the FBI. When the conspirators planted their dud bombs outside two Jewish targets on Wednesday night, the FBI was watching. The area was smothered with heavily armed Swat teams, the would-be bombers' exit was blocked and agents hauled them away in handcuffs.

The alleged terrorists, all US citizens, were arrested Wednesday as they laid what they believed were bombs -- in fact duds supplied by undercover agents -- outside a Jewish temple in New York's Bronx neighborhood, authorities said.

The stranger's behavior aroused the imam's suspicions. He invited other worshipers to meals, and spoke of violence and jihad, so the imam said he steered clear of him.

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