Authorities: Cooperation helped avert Quantico attack

Close cooperation between military and civilian authorities is being credited with thwarting a plot to attack U.S. military personnel at the Quantico Marine Corps base.

An indictment handed down Thursday by the U.S. attorney's office for the Eastern District of North Carolina alleges that Daniel Patrick Boyd and Hysen Sherifi got maps of the base to plan an attack on Quantico.

Quantico Commander Col. Daniel J. Choike said officials at the Marine base worked closely with Naval Criminal Investigative Service and FBI agents throughout the investigation.

The indictment alleges Boyd undertook reconnaissance of Quantico and obtained maps of the base to plan the attack.

The U.S. attorney's office said Boyd also possessed armor-piercing ammunition and had stated that it was "to attack the Americans."

Authorities earlier said that the men went on training expeditions in the weeks leading up to their arrests in July and practiced military tactics with armor-piercing bullets on a property in rural North Carolina.

Boyd and Sherifi were among seven suspects arrested last month, accused of conspiring to provide material support to terrorists and conspiring to murder, kidnap, maim and injure people overseas, according to court records.

Julia LeDoux is a staff writer for the News & Messenger of Woodbridge.