Arrested Islamic radicals wanted to be world’s best known terrorists

NEW YORK - The two young men from the New Jersey suburbs, who converted to a radical form of Islam, and were nabbed at New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport Saturday night, will appear a Newark court on Monday.

They were arrested before they could embark on a trip to wage a jihad in Africa.

Carlos Eduardo Almonte, 24, of Elmwood Park, and Mohamed Mahmood Alessa, 20, of North Bergen, were about to board separate flights to Egypt on their way to Somalia, the New York Daily News quoted officials, as saying.

“A lot of people need to get killed, bro, swear to God,” Alessa allegedly said in one of many conversations recorded by an undercover NYPD officer who befriended them.

He added: “My soul cannot rest until I shed blood. I wanna, like, be the world’s known terrorist.”

Both suspects are American citizens - Almonte a naturalized citizen from the Dominican Republic and Alessa the US-born son of Palestinian immigrants.

Those who know them told the Daily News they had mystified their parents and friends by abandoning the sports and videogames for hardcore rants about Middle Eastern politics.

“They were just normal kids. Then, after a while, everyone said they were getting carried away. Religion just became everything I guess. They stopped hanging out,” the NYDN quoted James Fracione, 22, who knows them both from the neighborhood, as saying.

According to the criminal complaint, the two men were under the sway of Yemen’s Anwar al-Awlaki, the American-born cleric who encourages terrorism and inspired the Ft. Hood gunman, who killed 13 people. (ANI)