Terrorist craziness

Mohammed Hossain, 49, and Yassin Aref, 34, are chared in alleged plot to purchase a shoulder-fired missile.

What a day. I'm sure you've seen the news by now. Essentially, here is what happened: two leaders of an Albany mosque were arrested early Thursday morning following a year-long investigation. It seems they're accused of laundering money to help a terrorist buy a shoulder-launched missile, which would be used to assassinate a Pakistani diplomat in New York City.

What these men didn't know is that there was no terror plot. The man they were laundering money for was an informant working for the federal government. Sure, he showed them a missile, but was a dud provided by the feds for use in this sting operation.

Sometime around 1:30 a.m., the FBI, state police and Albany police swooped down and sealed off the neighborhood and raided the mosque and the men's homes.

The story touched off a good old fashioned media circus like we haven't seen in Albany for a while. I would say this was bigger than the Columbia High School shooting story, only because it involved sending people out of town. WNYT sent a crew to Washington, D.C. to cover a news conference with the U.S. Department of Justice. I did not see much of the other stations' coverage, but I'm told WRGB and WTEN had crews in D.C. as well.

The whole day was pretty much spent working on this one story, or aspects of it. The one good thing about that is that when we have these "all hands on deck" situations, the boss usually buys lunch for everyone. MMmmm...free pizza. My lunch can sit in the fridge and wait for me tomorrow.

Anyway, here is a sample of the hard work cranked out at WNYT today:
Albany men arrested in missile scheme (VIDEO)
Court papers give missile plot timeline (VIDEO)
Life goes on at suspect's pizza parlor (VIDEO)
Members of Congress react to arrests
Pataki, Jennings pleased with arrests (VIDEO)
Muslim community shocked by arrests (video only)
Dept. of Justice: 'Not the crime of the century' (video only)