Fort Dix Plot Jurors Shown Violent Videos

Prosecutors in the case of five men accused of planning an attack on a New Jersey Army base showed jurors videos they hoped would demonstrate the defendants were inspired by, and hoped to mimic, al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden.

One video - clearly homemade - shows men haphazardly firing guns on an overcast winter day in Pennsylvania's Pocono Mountains.

Others - slickly produced and in Arabic - depicted American troops in the deserts of Iraq falling to snipers' bullets and Humvees exploding.

Prosecutors do not claim that the defendants - all foreign-born Muslims in their 20s who lived in suburban New Jersey - were connected with any overseas terrorist groups. But they argue that had the defendants not been arrested in May 2007, they would have tried to carry out an attack on Fort Dix, where U.S. troops train for deployments to Iraq.

Lawyers for Serdar Tatar, Mohamad Ibrahim Shnewer and brothers Dritan, Eljvir and Shain Duka say that if such a plot existed, it was only because a paid government informant tried to lead them into it.

The men are charged with conspiring to murder military personnel, attempted murder and weapons offenses. They could face life in prison if convicted.

Testimony on Wednesday focused heavily on screenings of videos and testimony about items found in the suspects' homes. Federal agents described finding a map of Fort Dix in Mohamad Shnewer's bedroom, ammunition in all the suspects' homes, and smoke bombs in Dritan Duka's apartment.

Jurors saw almost 17 minutes of homemade footage labeled "Shooting and Horseback Riding."

Taken from a stationary camera and set to a soundtrack of Arabic chanting, it showed 10 men, including some of the suspects, taking turns firing four guns at a range in the Poconos in February 2007.

An FBI agent testified the video was found in the apartment of Dritan Duka after he was arrested. Other videos found at a home where Eljvir and Shain Duka lived showed U.S. military vehicles being bombed in Iraq or U.S. soldiers falling to sniper's bullets.

Most of the jurors in the case watched stoically, but some winced and put their hands over their mouths.

One video showed men in the desert, under cover of night, shooting machine guns at unknown targets. As they fired, the men shouted, "Allah akbar," Arabic for "God is great."

The Fort Dix suspects used the same phrase when they fired weapons in their video. And like the homemade video, several of the jihadist movies featured Islamic music.