reports the New York Times. Is is true that it’s unclear whether religion played any role in the plan? The Times itself reported,
As the suspects were charged before a United States Magistrate Judge, Joel Schneider, prosecutors described a complicated operation that was at once ambitious and meandering, marked by deadly weapons and a certain lack of sophistication. The suspects alternately declared themselves eager to sacrifice their lives in the name of Allah and expressed ambivalence, worrying about getting arrested or deported for buying weapons or possessing a map of a military base.
But one of the suspects was a former sniper in Kosovo, the authorities said. And as they sought to amass the machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades they intended to use in the attack, and members of the cell trained with automatic weapons at a shooting range in Gouldsboro, Pa.