[Purple]

Only about 15 miles from where I live...

GOULDSBORO — The two men who walked into the Gouldsboro Tavern on Main Street one Saturday evening in late February looked out of place, but comfortable in the small-town bar.

They ordered a couple of glasses of Stoli vodka — straight up.

For the next couple of hours, they drank, smoked, chatted and got into a brief argument with a man wearing an American flag bandana.

Before leaving, they gave tavern owner Christi Wood a “good luck” dollar bill, which she hung behind the bar as part of a small collection.

Those two men, Serdar Tatar and Agron Abdullahu, were arrested Tuesday along with four others for allegedly plotting to kill soldiers at Fort Dix, N.J.

“I’m alarmed,” bartender Tommy Cornine said. “We were just really surprised to hear about all this. I haven’t had much time to let it sink in.”

The six are alleged to have trained at a firing range on state game lands off Route 507, according to the criminal complaint filed by the U.S. attorney’s office in Camden, N.J.

That news also surprised 6-foot-10 Walt Perih, the bar patron who got into a discussion with two of the accused.

“They walked up and said, ‘You’re a big S.O.B.,’ ” Mr. Perih, a Scranton native, said. “I tapped them on the shoulder and said, ‘Watch how you talk about my mother.’ ”

Noticing the men spoke a foreign language to each other, Mr. Perih said, “This is America, bro. We speak one language here.”

The bar is just a short distance from where authorities said the group had rented a two-story home at 2717 Eagles View Drive in the Big Bass Lake development. There, they allegedly planned their attack on Fort Dix. The Fort Monmouth, N.J. army base, Dover (Del.) Air Force Base, and the U.S. Coast Guard building in Philadelphia were other possible targets, according to the complaint.

Newspaper and TV reporters swarmed the peaceful community Tuesday and found residents in shock upon learning alleged terrorists had been living among them.

“Something like this, it certainly surprised me. But these are incidents that are happening around the entire country,” Ed Wilson, 66, who has kept a summer home at the resort for about 20 years, said. “After 9/11, my wife turned to me and said our lives are never going to be the same again. Apparently she was correct.”

Other residents said the quiet, but scenic environment provides good cover for someone plotting a terrorist attack.

“This is the ideal place for a terrorist to live,” William Moore, who’s spent about 18 summers at his Big Bass Lake home, said. “Of course, I’m concerned.”

A handful of amateur riflemen shooting at State Game Lands 127 firing range Tuesday said they had never seen the alleged terrorists there. Some insisted they would have noticed anyone training with a semiautomatic weapon at a public firing range.

“They wouldn’t just come out in the public,” said John Miele, a 53-year-old pharmacist from Tobyhanna, who was out shooting on his day off. “They’d stick out like a sore thumb.”

A state game lands officer usually patrols the ranges a few times a day, at times using binoculars to be discreet, Mr. Miele said. Often, the regulars police themselves.

“It doesn’t bother me,” shooter Ollie Hilburn, 64, of Wilkes-Barre, said. “I’m a man and if a guy comes out with a semi-automatic gun, I’m going to rap him.”

Contact the writer: mkemeny@timesshamrock.com
http://www.thetimes-tribune.com/site...ewsid=18317200


Authorities say a group of would-be terrorists rented this two-story home at 2717 Eagles View Drive in the Big Bass Lake development in Gouldsboro.

[Turner]

You better be careful!!

[CynthiaATL]

Damn! That is messed up!

[CoolHandJean]

yeah, I know that is not too far from my hometown. When I find out those idiots were training in the Poconos, I was pretty mad.