NEW JERSEY - Two New Jersey men who allegedly intended to kill American troops were arrested Saturday at a New York City airport before boarding flights on their way to join a jihadist group in Somalia, a newspaper reported. Mohamed Hamoud Alessa, 20, and Carlos Eduardo Almonte, 26, were arrested at John F. Kennedy International Airport before they could board separate flights to Egypt and then continue on to Somalia, The Star-Ledger of Newark reported. The newspaper cited officials familiar with the details of the arrests who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the investigation publicly. Alessa, of North Bergen, and Almonte, of Elmwood Park, were charged with conspiring to commit an act of international terrorism through al-Shabaab, a violent extremist group based in Somalia and connected to al-Qaida, the officials told the newspaper. Al-Shabaab was designated by the US as a terrorist group in 2008. The FBI and the New York Police Department confirmed to The Associated Press that two men were arrested at the airport, but did not identify them or provide further details. FBI spokesman Richard Kolko in Washington said no threat was made at the airport; New York police spokesmen were not immediately available for comment. Teams of state and federal law-enforcement agents who have been investigating Alessa and Almonte since 2006 took them into custody, the officials said. They are scheduled to appear Monday in federal court in Newark.
