Man Pleads Guilty to Weapons Charges in Alleged Plot to Attack Fort Dix

CAMDEN, N.J. – A New Jersey man pleaded guilty on Wednesday to providing weapons to a group of men accused of plotting an attack on Fort Dix.

Agron Abdullahu, 25, faces up to five years in federal prison when he is sentenced on Feb. 6.

The government has portrayed Abdullahu as the smallest player among the six men who were charged in May in connection with the plot. While the others are charged with conspiring to kill military personnel — a crime punishable by life in prison — Abdullahu was charged only with weapons offenses.

Authorities said that while Abdullahu provided weapons to the other men and joined them in Pennsylvania's Pocono Mountains to shoot them, he resisted the idea of participating in an attack. The government said that he told the others at one point that it would be against Islam to kill civilians and that it would be "crazy" to attack the military installation.

Abdullahu, of Buena Vista Township, was arrested in May along with the five other men whose trial is scheduled to begin in January.

The suspects, all in their 20s, were born overseas but have spent many years living in Philadelphia's southern New Jersey suburbs.

The other five — brothers Dritan, Shain and Eljvir Duka; Mohamad Ibrahim Shnewer; and Tatar — face life in prison if convicted of conspiracy to murder military personnel.

Authorities said they scouted out East Coast military installations to find one to attack but settled on Fort Dix largely because Tatar knew his way around from delivering pizzas to the base for his father's restaurant.

An ethnic Albanian born in the country that became Kosovo, Abdullahu fled with his family to the United States eight years ago. He has worked since then as a baker in a supermarket.

Since his arrest, he has been held in isolation at a federal detention center in Philadelphia. In June, officials found an etching in his cell of an AK-47 shooting at the letters "FBI" as well as graffiti referring to the Kosovo Liberation Army.