U.S. & World

CAMDEN, N.J. (AP) ― The video that spurred the investigation of five men accused of plotting an attack on soldiers on New Jersey's Fort Dix shows some of them in camouflage clothing, firing rapid-fire weapons on a snowy driving range.

An investigator who was on the case from the beginning testified Tuesday that the way the men were firing was unusual.

"They were actually advancing toward a target," said Fred Lang, a member of an FBI anti-terrorism task force who was previously in the military. "Through my years as a firearms instructor, I've never seen that done."

"There's only one reason for that," Lang said. "It's a fire-and-maneuver tactic."

The video was one of two that jurors were shown in the first day of testimony at the trial.

The men -- all foreign-born Muslims in their 20s who have lived for years in the suburbs of southern New Jersey -- are charged with conspiracy to murder military personnel, attempted murder and weapons offenses. They could face life in prison if they're convicted.

Government prosecutors have presented the case as one of the most frightening examples of homegrown terrorism. Defense lawyers say they were not plotting anything.

Prosecutors have said they'll play some 90 audio and video recordings to the jury during the trial, which is expected to last into December.

The video shot at the firing range was the one that sparked the investigation.

The men shot it themselves during a trip to the Pocono Mountains in Pennsylvania in January 2006. One of them later took it to a Circuit City store in Mount Laurel to have it converted to DVD.

The clerk who was working on the project was alarmed at seeing the men shoot the weapons and shout, "Allah Akbar," which is Arabic for "God is great," and alerted police.

The recording had not been made public until Tuesday.

Michael Huff, the defense lawyer for Dritan Duka, showed jurors another part of the video, which had footage of skiing, snowboarding and snowmobile riding.

At one point, he asked Lang what kind of training those activities may have been for.

"Depends on the mission," the investigator answered.

"Might that come in handy in a 007 movie?" Huff asked.

A prosecutor objected to the question as "silly," and Judge Robert Kugler agreed, stopping the line of questioning.

Huff's question, though, was an effort to build the defense theory that the government is running a "cut and paste" case where innocent moments are made to seem ominous.

For instance, the first witness to take the stand was Col. Ronald Thaxton, the commander at Fort Dix.

He was called by the prosecution to outline basic facts, such as the size of the installation (30,000 acres), that it is currently training troops for deployments to Iraq, and that the guards at the main gate to the base are armed with 9mm pistols.

But defense lawyers used his testimony to try and show that there was no sophisticated plot to attack the base and that the government has made innocent activities seem dangerous.

Prosecutors say one of the suspects provided a map of the base, and that another did surveillance on the installation by driving by it.

But under cross examination, Thaxton said that civilians can be on the base to golf, play or watch soccer, go to a museum or even a municipal court to contest traffic tickets. He also acknowledged that maps of the area are available online, but said those maps are not particularly detailed.

Jurors were also shown a video Tuesday of an alleged gun purchase by two of the suspects. While the Poconos video prompted the investigation, the gun buy concluded a big portion of it. At the end of the video, the screen goes black, but a SWAT team can be heard arresting the men.

Prosecutors also introduced a transcript of one conversation in which Dritan Duka says that he owned two guns but gave them to a friend who was legally in the United States.

Duka explained that he couldn't keep the guns himself because he's an illegal immigrant and it would be unlawful for him to have a weapon.

Testimony is expected to continue Wednesday with agents who searched the defendants' homes.

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