Rep. King encouraged that American Muslims helped foil plot against US military

House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Pete King (R-N.Y.) said Thursday that he is encouraged by news that Muslim Americans in the Tampa, Fla., area provided information that led to the arrest of a Kosovar-American who was plotting an attack against the U.S. military there.

Press reports say that Sami Osmakac met with radical Islamist groups while in Kosovo, and planned to use a car bomb to attack the U.S. military in Florida. Osmakac was arrested Sunday and was charged earlier this week.

King said he has been "reliably informed" that Tampa's Muslim American community tipped off U.S. authorities.

"The good citizen or citizens who reported Osmakac to authorities deserve great credit for doing what too many leaders in the Muslim American community too often fail to do," King said. "I have long advocated for increased cooperation between Muslim leaders and law enforcement, so this development is a positive sign."

Still, King said he is disturbed by the arrest of a former U.S. soldier, Craig Baxam, for trying to join al-Shabaab, a group the United States has designated as a terrorist organization. The Justice Department charged Baxam on Monday with trying to provide "material support" to that group, and King said the incident underlines the value of his controversial hearings last year on radicalized Muslim Americans who attempt to harm the U.S. military.

"At one of the hearings in December, the committee learned that the threat of radicalized military personnel becoming involved in terrorist activity is very serious, with radicalized soldiers launching two successful attacks on military targets and the recent disruption of at least five recent terror plots involving military insiders and 11 involving former military personnel or those who attempted to join a law enforcement or intelligence agency," King said.

King added that he is "quite concerned" that Baxam was working in Korea as a cryptographer, "one of the most sensitive jobs in the U.S. military and intelligence communities."