A black Muslim terrorist has been sentenced to 22 years in federal prison

A member of a four-man homegrown terrorist cell that planned to attack Israeli and Jewish targets three years ago in Los Angeles was sentenced to 22 years in federal prison. Levar Haney Washington, 30, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to levy war against the United States through terrorism. The prison-hatched conspiracy targeted the Israeli consulate and some of its officials, the El Al ticket counter at Los Angeles International Airport and two synagogues in the predominantly Orthodox Pico-Robertson neighborhood. Also on the target list were U.S. military recruiting stations. Members of the cell were three American-born converts to Islam - Washington, Gregory Vernon Patterson and Kevin Lamar James - and a Pakistani national, Hamad Riaz Samana. According to the indictment, James founded the cell while in California state prison and named it Janiyyat Ul Islam Is Saheeh (JIS), roughly translated as the Assembly of Authentic Islam, an extremist offshoot of Louis Farrakhan's Nation of Islam. The plot was discovered through a lucky break in July 2005, when Torrance police found a mobile phone dropped by Patterson while he and Washington were robbing a gas station to finance their operations. The find led police to Washington's apartment, where they found "jihadist" literature, bulletproof vests, and a list that included the "headquarters of Zion" with the address of the Israeli consulate.