The Secret Agent

Griffin spent months establishing his cover as a disgruntled ex-soldier devoted to Jihad against U.S. forces overseas. At the outset, said the sources familiar with the case (who asked for anonymity when discussing details of the investigation), Griffin was supposed to hang around a local mosque and was "tasked" with gathering information on individuals the FBI deemed "persons of interest." According to defense lawyer Hartman, the FBI originally had up to 20 intelligence targets in mind. But at least initially, they didn't name any of the targets to Griffin. Government officials said the initial targets' identities are still considered confidential.

Dennis Terez, head of the Federal Public Defender's office in Ohio, who represented one of El-Hindi's co-conspirators in the case, noted: "The way the government went about this investigation raises certain questions in our minds. If our client—indeed if none of the defendants—were to be found on the list of intelligence targets, what happened to the targets? Did this investigation sidetrack the government so that the 20 targets got away?"

But Griffin eventually came across other local suspects who piqued the FBI's interest. In 2002, he first met el-Hindi, a Jordanian-born US citizen, who prosecutors say had approached Griffin seeking bodyguard training. Then, in the summer of 2004, el-Hindi introduced Griffin to two Chicago "brothers"—Zubair and Khaleel Ahmed—who were supposedly also interested in such training. (The two Chicago men, of Egyptian descent, were actually cousins.)

Griffin established a relationship with the Ahmed cousins. That in turn led to yet more connections. According to court documents, Zubair and Khaleel Ahmed communicated over the internet with an Atlanta man who was a U.S. contact for an international Islamic network that recruited and indoctrinated followers via the web. One key figure in this network: a London man named Younis Tsouli, who used the internet nickname "Irhabi 007"—Arabic for "Terrorist 007." Tsouli was known for posting inflammatory Jihadist messages and videos, including beheading scenes staged by the now deceased leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Moussab al-Zarqawi.

El-Hindi and Griffin also met up with Mohammed Zaki Amawi, a 28-year-old Toledo man who had spent much of his youth in Jordan. The FBI informant and the two suspects began to "discuss and plan...violent jihad training," according to court testimony. (El-Hindi's lawyer says the initial meeting between Griffin and the two men occurred at a mosque). During the course of subsequent meetings and conversations, Griffin wore a wire and recorded the two suspects discussing firearms training and building homemade bombs for supposed use against U.S. troops overseas.

Beginning in 2004, El-Hindi, Amawi and a third Toledo man, 27-year-old Wassim Mazloum, allegedly began plotting to provide "one or more co-conspirators overseas" with resources—including a volatile but powerful explosive known as "astrolite"—that could be used to launch attacks against U.S. troops in Iraq and elsewhere.