In land of opportunity, they changed

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By most accounts, they were typical teenagers, focused on music and friends. They played soccer on the lawn and smiled easily. In their multicultural communities, the foreign-born youths blended in.

But in the years between adolescence and adulthood, something changed. They paid little attention to their studies. They hardened. They came to find pleasure and purpose in the extremist philosophy of jihad, authorities say.

In a Camden County courtroom today, federal prosecutors will argue that the six men charged Monday in a plot to kill American soldiers at Fort Dix are too dangerous to be released, that they represent a new and frightening breed of zealot: the terrorist next door.

Friends and family members offer contrasting portraits of the men. Committed to family. Hardworking. In some cases, affable.

Dozens of interviews conducted in recent days reveal a mixed picture of the defendants, shedding new light on their years in New Jersey and, in some cases, on their ideological transformation.

One law enforcement official said that transformation had already been completed when the FBI was alerted to the group 15 months ago.

"Something happened from the time these guys were in high school until now," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

"How they congealed, how they formed this tight-knit group is unknown," the official said. "By the time we got to them, they were already radicalized."

MOHAMAD SHNEWER

He is the public face of the plot, the man whom authorities have characterized as the most committed to causing "carnage."

Mohamad Ibrahim Shnewer, a 22-year-old cab driver in Philadelphia, showed his friends the last will and testament of two of the Sept. 11 hijackers and smiled when watching Internet videos depicting the deaths of American soldiers, prosecutors say.

"My intent is to hit a heavy concentration of soldiers," he allegedly told an FBI informant.

Those words came as a shock to many who know Shnewer, a U.S. citizen who emigrated from Jordan two decades ago. Shnewer's family settled in Cherry Hill and opened a small grocery store in nearby Pennsauken.

Short and stocky, Shnewer graduated from Cherry Hill High School West, a multicultural school of some 1,500 students, and went on to Camden County Community College. But he never completed his studies, instead taking a job at the family store.

By the time he began driving a cab three months ago, he already was deep into the plot's final preparations, authorities say.

Friends and family members say the federal government's claims simply don't square with the man they know.

"He's honest. He's smart. He never fought with anybody," said his mother, Faten Shnewer.

An uncle in Pennsauken said Shnewer "can't even kill a chicken," let alone U.S. soldiers, and contended the government had elevated "babbling" among Shnewer and his friends into an exaggerated criminal case.

The oldest of six children, Shnewer sometimes worshipped with his father, who shares the same name, at Al-Aqsa Islamic Society in Philadelphia.

He also worked with his father at All-City Taxi, a South Philadelphia dispatch service. Co-workers recalled the son as hardworking and friendly.

While the elder Shnewer was known to pray in the office, neither he nor his son showed any sign of zealotry, employees said.

"We had no problem with them," owner Maria Perri said.

THE BROTHERS DUKA

Ferid Beroulli remembers them as "smiling faces."

Dritan, Shain, and Eljvir Duka would occasionally worship with their father at the Albania Islamic Cultural Center on Staten Island, where Beroulli is a long-serving imam.

The Dukas, natives of Macedonia who had entered the United States illegally through Mexico in 1984, lived in Brooklyn at the time. Later, they moved to Cherry Hill.

Ferik Duka, the children's father and a roofer by trade, was "a hard worker," Beroulli said. The three boys, now in their 20s, did not stand out, the imam said. "Just young kids."

There are no records that Dritan -- friendly, outgoing, always ready to tell jokes -- ever went to school in New Jersey. But the two others -- Shain and Eljvir, commonly known as Elvis -- attended Cherry Hill High School West before dropping out and following their father into the roofing business.

It was about seven years ago when the Duka brothers began to change, said a cousin, Ramiz Duka, also of Cherry Hill. They grew their beards long and began to argue with him about religion.

A practicing Muslim, Ramiz Duka said his cousins criticized him for listening to the Albanian music he loves, dressing in Americanized clothes and not praying properly.

"They started changing in their attitudes," he said. "I thought something was wrong with them. I didn't want my kids to learn what they were learning, what they were saying, what they were thinking. About some kind of a tradition of Islam that has nothing to do with Islam. I had arguments about what I believe and what they believe."

Ramiz Duka said he was so troubled he stopped visiting.

SERDAR TATAR

It was the quintessential immigrant success story.

Muslim Tatar legally brought his family to the United States from Turkey in 1992, and with hard work established a home in Cherry Hill and a business, a pizzeria named Super Mario's, practically in the shadow of Fort Dix and McGuire Air Force Base.

With their lunches and dinners, soldiers and airmen put cash in the family's pockets.

Today, authorities say, the father's son, Serdar, is charged with plotting to kill "as many soldiers as possible."

The younger Tatar, 23, had once worked at the pizzeria and made deliveries to Fort Dix. He knew the layout well and planned to use the restaurant as a launching point for the attack, authorities said.

But the portrait of Tatar presented in court filings is a complex one, by turns depicting him as eager to kill and hesitant to go along with the others in the case.

Married to a Russian-born woman now pregnant with twins, Tatar went to Philadelphia police in November of last year, telling them he was being pressured to steal a map of Fort Dix in what could be a terrorist plot, according to the criminal complaint.

The information made its way to the FBI, and agents questioned Tatar. He apparently had a change of heart: According to the complaint, Tatar denied a plot was in place.

Authorities say he subsequently stole a map of Fort Dix from the pizzeria.

Later still, in a recorded conversation, Tatar allegedly pledged himself to the plan "in the name of Allah."

Tatar's father denied his son planned to harm anyone.

"He is not a terrorist," Muslim Tatar said. "I am not a terrorist."

Like four of his co-defendants, Tatar attended Cherry Hill High School West; he dropped out after his junior year. Most recently, Tatar lived in Philadelphia and worked as a clerk at a 7-Eleven near Temple University.

In the years since high school, Tatar maintained another link with some of his co-defendants, worshipping with them at the South Jersey Islamic Center in Palmyra. Authorities have characterized Tatar as a radical.

His lawyer, Richard Sparaco, questions that view, saying he plans to highlight Tatar's visit to police late last year.

"This raises serious questions" about Tatar's guilt, Sparaco said. "Why would someone involved in a terrorism plot go to the police and tell them to contact the FBI?"

AGRON ABDULLAHU

Agron Abdullahu said he felt as if he'd been "reborn."

It was December 1999, and Abdullahu, a 17-year-old ethnic Albanian, had been living in the United States since the spring, resettled from his war-riven homeland in Yugoslavia. With his parents and three younger siblings, he landed at Fort Dix with more than 4,000 other Kosovars.

The Abdullahus spent several months at the base before finding a home in the Gloucester County community of Williamstown. That's where a Philadelphia Inquirer reporter interviewed the family about the progress of the resettlement. Agron Abdullahu said he loved his adopted country.

"People are friendly and help me with anything," the teen was quoted as saying in the Dec. 7, 1999, story. Living in the United States, he said, is "like I am reborn here for a second time."

Abdullahu, now 24 and living in Atlantic County, had been employed as a baker in a Williamstown ShopRite when the FBI arrested him Monday and charged him with aiding and abetting the plot. Authorities say he provided three of the defendants with weapons.

The law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity said Abdullahu has known the co-defendants for years but did not appear to share the their extreme views.

Short and slight, with a crew cut and a closely cropped beard, Abdullahu was described by co-workers as thoroughly Americanized, a rap music fan prone to jokes and hearty laughter.

But there were hints of a darker side.

Bob Watts, who worked in the supermarket's bakery with him, said Abdullahu referred to Osama bin Laden as "Uncle Benny" and once showed him recipes for homemade bombs.

"He ... would say things that you would think that, 'This guy can't be all there,'" Watts, who recently left the supermarket for another job, said yesterday on "Good Morning America."

"I dismissed them as jokes."

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[Ban Hammer 12,679]

"Something happened from the time these guys were in high school until now," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

no kidding, mr obvious anonymous official

[almaty 19]

rebels without a clue or self image...look for one and found it in terrorism...idiots

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rebels without a clue or self image...look for one and found it in terrorism...idiots

Yeah what happened to the good ol days when young men joined violent street gangs and ended up dead or in jail. That was a win-win for everybody.

[Trompe le Monde 1,107]

I find it a little ironic that muslims from the balkans would turn to jihad.

sure US & British foreign policy to protect muslims in the region would be something they could agree with

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

I find it a little ironic that muslims from the balkans would turn to jihad.

sure US & British foreign policy to protect muslims in the region would be something they could agree with

The West does a piss poor job of advertising the good its done there. We're much too preoccupied with all the chest-beating over how horrible we are.

[Ban Hammer 12,679]

I find it a little ironic that muslims from the balkans would turn to jihad.

sure US & British foreign policy to protect muslims in the region would be something they could agree with

The West does a piss poor job of advertising the good its done there. We're much too preoccupied with all the chest-beating over how horrible we are.

let's not open that can of woms, shall we?