NEWBURGH (New York) - THE FOUR men accused of plotting to bomb New York City synagogues and shoot down military airplanes with missiles are down-and-out ex-convicts living on the margins in a faded industrial city.

One is a petty criminal who spent a day in 2002 snatching purses and shooting at people with an airgun from a vehicle. His lawyer calls him 'intellectually challenged.' Three have histories of drug convictions, one of them for selling narcotics in a school zone.

PLOT NEVER CAME CLOSE The arrests follow a long line of homegrown, headline-making terror plots since Sept 11 that never came close to reality because the FBI inserted itself in early stages. Authorities have broken up plots with targets including the Sears Tower in Chicago, the Herald Square subway station in Manhattan, underground gas pipes at John F. Kennedy International Airport, the Fort Dix military base in New Jersey and tunnels underneath the Hudson River. ... more

The man prosecutors portrayed as the instigator of the scheme said he smoked pot the day he planned to blow up the temples.

They went to Wal-Mart for cameras to photograph their targets and had to call around to various contacts to get guns, prosecutors said.

But if they sometimes seemed amateurish, the men were dangerous people fueled by their hatred for Jews and America, prosecutors said.

The plotters managed to get their hands on what they thought were lethal explosives and a surface-to-air missile system, only to find out that they were inert devices supplied by the FBI in a sting operation.

'It's hard to envision a more chilling plot,' assistant US attorney Eric Snyder said. 'These are extremely violent men.'

With an informant's help, the FBI monitored the plot every step of the way, including with video and audio surveillance of a home in Newburgh where the conspirators gathered, according to a criminal complaint. -- AP