MIAMI - A group of young men seized in a Miami warehouse have been charged in a federal indictment with conspiring with al-Qaida to commit acts of violence in the United States, including blowing up Chicago's Sears Tower.
The seven individuals indicted by a federal grand jury were taken into custody Thursday when authorities swarmed the warehouse in the Liberty City area, removing a metal door with a blow torch. The indictment also alleges plans to blow a federal building in Miami in conjunction with the al-Qaida terrorist network.
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and other top-level Bush administration officials scheduled a news conference for later Friday and a similar briefing was in Miami.
According to the indictment handed up Thursday, a young man identified as Narseal Batiste, beginning in November 2005, recruited and trained the others "for a mission to wage war against the United States government," including a plot to destroy the Sears Tower.
To obtain money and support for their mission, the conspirators sought help from al-Qaida, pledged an oath to the terrorist organization and supported an al-Qaida plot to destroy FBI buildings, the four-count indictment charged.
