The Mole At The Quickie Mart

Today's Herald gives a detailed account of how the authorities snared the Sears Tower terrorists. You'll never look at the foreign guy who runs the neighborhood convenience store the same way again:

The reputed ringleader of the Liberty City Seven was leery of the two Arabic men who promised to help him launch his terror war.

So in January, he ordered his followers to strip-search them both to make sure they weren't wearing wires and drive them to Islamorada in the Florida Keys for a meeting on the beach.

Sitting inside a tent, one of the men boasted of his intimate ties to al Qaeda, bragging about his role in ''planning the attack'' by al Qaeda on the USS Cole in Yemen in 2000, a bombing that killed 17 sailors, and about his connection to an explosives expert in Europe at his beck and call.

He lied. The two men had, in fact, no ties to the terrorist organization but were moles for the Feds. But their performance was enough to erase Narseal Batiste's distrust -- thus salvaging a stalled FBI investigation. It would culminate last month in the high-profile arrests of seven young men from Miami who authorities say were hellbent on causing carnage across the country.

Newly obtained federal court documents, filled with transcripts of secret FBI recordings, tell how two unidentified informants risked their lives and describe one man's delusions of grandeur -- and determination -- to wage his own holy war.

It's an interesting tale. Give it a read.

(Login/pswd=crockett@tubbs.com/miamivice)