The FBI says Michael Curtis Reynolds, 47, of Wilkes-Barre, Pa. attempted to provide material aid to al-Qaeda to disrupt the federal government, to change its foreign policy, and to turn the public against the war in Iraq, the newspaper said.
[...] Reynolds, who is unemployed, was drawn into an FBI sting operation in Idaho two months ago in which he meet with a purported al-Qaeda operative who was really a Montana judge who monitors extremist Muslim Web sites looking for potential terrorist activity, according to the report.
At that meeting, Reynolds expected to receive $40,000 to finance a plot to blow up sections of the Transcontinental Pipeline which carries natural gas from the U.S. Gulf Coast to New York City via Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
The alleged plot also included a plan to detonate propane trucks along the Alaska Pipeline, and to blow up oil refineries in New Jersey and Wyoming.
The newspaper quoted John Gurganus, a federal prosecutor, as saying Reynolds hoped to "disrupt government function", provoke opposition to the war in Iraq, drive up fuel prices, and "lend to the efforts by al-Qaeda to terrorize this nation." |
