Aug 25, 2006 11:19 pm US/Central
Sears Tower Terrorism Plot Targeted Civilians
The Miami Group of Would-be Attackers Discussed a Staggering Death Toll
by Jay Levine
CHICAGO (CBS) ―
New undercover video obtained by CBS 2 show an alleged terror plot by a Miami group to attack, not only the
Sears Tower, but civilians in Chicago.
As CBS 2's chief correspondent Jay Levine reports, the would-be attackers discussed a staggering death toll.
The Miami surveillance tapes of alleged ringleader
Narseal Batiste and an undercover FBI agent not only reveal the would-be terrorists' target, but how they'd plant explosives and coordinate the attack.
"It's got to actually go in the sewer under the building, directly under the building. See what I'm saying? And it takes a crew of people just to do that," said Batiste.
Batiste's knowledge of the Sears Tower comes from his days as a Chicago FedEx driver, delivering to the building's underground loading docks. He uses items on a hotel room coffee table to explain.
Per the recorded video:
Batiste: Now, what I plan on doing is to attack here, here, here, here.
Informant: Attack? But you're not taking me...
Batiste: With explosives. I'm going to have some in here. The center.
Informant: Oh, you'll have it in the center, and around it, and underground. So what will happen.
Batiste: It will all explode at one time.
Informant: 120 floors?
Batiste: (nods)
Informant: (whistles)
But a lot of Batiste's assumptions are simply outrageous.
"There's like a thousand people under the ground. They have tunnels that people walk building to building under the ground. There's like a thousand in there," said Batiste.
Total fiction, unlike the eastern part of the Loop, there are no pedways connected to the Sears Tower -- only utility tunnels with no public access and nowhere near a thousand people down there. Another part of the terrorist fantasy involves what happens after the blasts.
Informant: There no. Not going to be any more survivors.
Batiste: No. We'll make of that. If we see them surviving, then we'll shoot them.
They talk of the attack triggering a holy war, which will spread throughout Chicago.
Informant: So we're speaking about how many people? Like a hundred thousand?
Batiste: Thousands
Informant: Hundred thousand?
Batiste: Close to a million.
Informant: So all this, will be collapsed.
Another part of the plan was to raid a prison here and recruit escapees for their Jihad while police were preoccupied with the Sears Tower attack. Authorities familiar with Chicago's anti-terrorist measures say the Miami group clearly wanted to do something and would have tried, but says they had no chance of succeeding, calling them keystone crooks.
(© MMVI, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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