Five at Ft. Jackson South Carolina Accused of Attempted Poisoning at the Base.
By Erick Stakelbeck
CBN News has learned exclusively that five Muslim soldiers at Fort Jackson in South Carolina were arrested just before Christmas and are in custody. The five men were part of the Arabic Translation program at the base.
The men are suspected of trying to poison the food supply at Fort Jackson.
A source with intimate knowledge of the investigation, which is ongoing, told CBN News investigators suspect the “Fort Jackson Five” may have been in contact with the group of five Washington, DC area Muslims that traveled to Pakistan to wage jihad against U.S. troops in December. That group was arrested by Pakistani authorities, also just before Christmas.
Coming as it does on the heels of November’s Fort Hood jihadist massacre, this news has major implications.
Five Arabic speakers at Ft. Jackson Arrested for “Attempted” Poisoning
From Fox News
The U.S. Army is investigating allegations that soldiers were attempting to poison the food supply at Fort Jackson in South Carolina.
The ongoing probe began two months ago, Chris Grey, a spokesman for the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division, told Fox News.
The Army is taking the allegations “extremely seriously,” Grey said, but so far, “there is no credible information to support the allegations.”
Five suspects, detained in December, were part of an Arabic translation program called “09 Lima” and use Arabic as their first language, two sources told Fox News. Another military source said they were Muslim. It wasn’t clear whether they were still being held.
Grey would not confirm or deny the sources’ information.
AP Report on the Case:
COLUMBIA, S.C. — The Army has been investigating five soldiers at its largest training base since December over allegations that soldiers’ food may have been poisoned, but officials said Friday no one was ever in any danger.
While an army spokesman at the Pentagon said the probe involved allegations of poisoning in the installation’s food service, a spokesman for Fort Jackson in South Carolina would say only that the investigation involves five soldiers and their “potential verbal threats against fellow soldiers.”
“While the investigation continues, there is currently no credible evidence to substantiate the allegations … At no time was there any danger to the Fort Jackson community,” spokeswoman Julia Simpkins said.
Fort Jackson is the Army’s largest training installation, where more than 50,000 men and women go through about 10 weeks of basic training.
Its food service includes 13 dining halls that serve about 40,000 hot meals daily.
On Thursday, the Army confirmed that the investigation began in December and was ongoing.
Army Lt. Col. Christopher Garver said the allegations involved soldiers’ food being poisoned. He said no credible information to support those allegations has been found.
Garver, based at the Pentagon, said he could not release any specifics of the investigation by the Army’s Criminal Investigative Service and that he was not aware that any arrests had been made.
Besides training most entry-level soldiers, Fort Jackson is host to a myriad of schools, such as the military’s center for all the Air Force, Navy and Army chaplains and its school for drill sergeants.
Meanwhile, 6 to be disciplined in Hasan Nidal/Ft. Hood Case:
From Fox News
The military will formally discipline at least six officers, mostly from Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, for failing to take action against the officer accused of carrying out last year’s deadly shooting rampage at Fort Hood, according to people familiar with the matter.
Senior Army officials said the decision to punish so many officers reflects the military’s belief that the November assault, which killed 13 people at the Army base in central Texas, could have been prevented if Maj. Nidal Hasan’s superiors had alerted authorities to his increasing Islamist radicalization.
The officials said that as many as eight officers could ultimately be censured over Hasan, mostly with letters of reprimand that effectively end their military careers. The punishments will be detailed in an “accountability review” that Army Gen. Carter Ham, who has been investigating the shootings for several months, will deliver to top Army officials as early as Friday.
An Army spokesman said that Ham’s accountability review would be submitted within days, but declined to comment further on the inquiry.
People familiar with the matter said the Army had earlier notified eight officers that they were under investigation, including Col. John Bradley, who until recently ran Walter Reed’s psychiatry department, and Col. Charles Engel, a psychiatrist who supervised Hasan when he was doing a fellowship at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences.
