Quantico targeted in jihad plot

A homegrown terror plot centering on a North Carolina family planned to target the Marine Corps base at Quantico, Va., according to a superseding indictment unsealed Thursday.

Already charged with plotting to wage jihad overseas, Daniel Patrick Boyd, a Muslim convert, is now accused of obtaining a map of the base at Quantico and with conducting surveillance there to help plan an attack.

Authorities say Mr. Boyd also had armor-piercing bullets that he said were “to attack Americans.”

“[Naval Criminal Investigative Service] investigative efforts in support of the FBI’s investigation centered on protecting Marine Corps personnel assigned to MCB Quantico during Mr. Boyd’s alleged activities,” said Owen D. Harris, special agent in charge of the Charlotte Division of the FBI. “These efforts were closely coordinated and supported by MCB Quantico Command to ensure the safety of military and civilian personnel aboard the base.”

With the new charges — conspiracy to murder U.S. military personnel, possession of weapons in furtherance of a crime of violence and providing weapons to a convicted felon — Mr. Boyd could get life in prison.

Mr. Boyd already faced life in prison as he and six others, including two of his sons, were charged in July with providing material support to terrorists. Authorities say they bought weapons and conducted military-training exercises in North Carolina, all with an eye toward heading overseas to wage holy war for Islam.

Charged along with Mr. Boyd were his two sons, Zakariya, 20, and Dylan, 22. The others charged are Anes Subasic, 33; Mohammad Omar Aly Hassan, 22; Ziyad Yaghi, 21; and Hysen Sherifi, 24.

Zakariya Boyd and Mr. Sherifi also face additional charges along with Daniel Patrick Boyd in the new indictment.

Sabrina Boyd has said her husband and sons are innocent.

“We are ordinary family,” she said in a statement released through the Muslim American Society in Raleigh, N.C., shortly after her family members’ arrests. “We have the right to justice, and we believe that justice will prevail.”

The elder Mr. Boyd was described by investigators as the group’s ringleader, who grew frustrated with moderate mosques in North Carolina and began holding services at his home and recruiting others to join his campaign to fight overseas.

It would have been a return trip for Mr. Boyd, according to authorities who said he traveled to Afghanistan where he trained and fought against the Soviet Union between 1989 and 1992. But authorities said Mr. Boyd was also convicted in 1991 of robbing a bank in Pakistan and was sentenced to having a hand and a foot cut off before the verdict was overturned.

“These additional charges hammer home the grim reality that today’s homegrown terrorists are not limiting their violent plans to locations overseas,” U.S. Attorney George E.B. Holding said Thursday, “but instead are willing to set their sights on American citizens and American targets, right here at home.”