'Cyber' gang targeted U.S. sites

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Computer files maintained by a "cyber-terrorist" gang in the United Kingdom included a threat by 45 Muslim doctors said to be planning an attack on the Mayport Naval Base in Jacksonville, Fla., and other U.S. sites using car bombs and rocket grenades.

U.S. officials, however, said they did not consider the group's plan to be a credible threat.

"We are 45 doctors and we are determined to undertake jihad and take the battle inside America," someone claiming to be a doctor wrote in one of the group's online discussions.

The discussion included an apparent reference to the USS John F. Kennedy docked in Jacksonville: "The first target which will be penetrated by nine brothers is the naval base which gives shelter to the ship Kennedy."

The plan revealed yesterday by the London Telegraph involved six Chevrolet vehicles, three fishing boats and exploding gas tanks with rocket-propelled grenades. The Internet discussion also mentioned "clubs for naked women which are opposite the First and Third units" — an apparent reference to strip clubs near the naval base.

Younes Tsouli, 23, Tariq Al-Daour, 21, and Waseem Mughal, 24, pleaded guilty this week to "inciting another person to commit an act of terrorism wholly or partly outside the United Kingdom which would, if committed in England and Wales, constitute murder" through Web sites and chat rooms. The three men also pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud banks and credit-card companies.

The Internet sites showed films of hostages and beheadings, and also directed potential terrorists to Iraq and discussed bomb attacks.

Investigators have not found a link between the chat rooms and a half-dozen doctors arrested in last week's attack at Glasgow Airport and car bombs rigged to explode in London. Tsouli and Daour are biochemistry students and Mughal is a law student.

The British plot "has already been thoroughly investigated" by U.S. officials, said William Knocke, Homeland Security spokesman.

"The FBI and DHS consider this threat not to be credible," he said.