Five individuals were arrested amid a probe into food poisoning at Fort Jackson U.S. military base, Fox News reported on Thursday (EST).
Sources told Fox the five men were detained in December over allegations that they attempted to poison the food supply at the South Carolina base.
They were all part of the base’s Arabic translation training program, referred to in the Army as “Lima 09”.
“Each of them uses Arabic as his first language,” one source told Fox News.
In an earlier report, before the arrests emerged, a military source told Fox News the suspects were Muslims.
CBN News reported that the five arrested men were Islamic and cited a source who said they may have been in contact with five Washington, DC Muslims, who were arrested in December after authorities uncovered their plans to travel to Pakistan to wage jihad against the U.S.
However, it was unclear whether the men were still in custody.
An ongoing probe into the alleged Fort Jackson plot began two months ago, the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division spokesman Chris Grey told Fox News.
The Army is taking the allegations “extremely seriously,” Grey said, but so far, “there is no credible information to support the allegations”.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation told Fox News they were “aware” of the Fort Jackson investigation, however they said the inquiry would be carried out by the Army’s CID.
The investigation has surfaced in the wake of a mass shooting at Fort Hood, Texas last November, which killed 12 people and wounded 31 others.
It was allegedly undertaken by U.S. Army major Nidal Malik Hasan, an American-born Muslim of Palestinian descent, who was serving as a psychiatrist. He has been charged and a prosecution is ongoing.