The arrest of four Muslim ex-convicts in an alleged homegrown terror plot in New York City is renewing fears about the spread of Islamic extremism in prisons, the Associated Press reports. At least two of the four men accused of plotting to bomb synagogues and shoot down military airplanes converted to Islam behind bars. “Basically, the threat is real,” said Paul Rogers of the American Correctional Chaplains Association. “Prisons have unstable people and people who are on the edge of a lot of different things. The radical elements of any religion can be emphasized.”
Fears were heightened last week in the debate over the fate of detainees if President Barack Obama shutters the prison at Guantanamo Bay. FBI Director Robert Mueller said terror suspects brought to the U.S. could end up “radicalizing others” or planning new terror attacks. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Obama would do nothing to endanger the public and decried “fear-mongering about this.”