Mahmoud Omar, the main government informant who recorded hundreds of hours of conversations with the five foreign-born Muslims accused of plotting an armed attack on Fort Dix, took the stand this morning in federal court.

Omar testified briefly before the lunch break and will return to the stand this afternoon. Prosecutors said they plan then to begin playing some of the hundreds of hours of conversations Omar secretly-recorded with the five men.

Omar said this morning that he met defendant Mohamad Shnewer in 2005 at the grocery store Shnewer's parents owned. The FBI asked him to start wearing a wire after authorities were given a video the defendants made at a Poconos shooting range, depicting 10 men firing guns.

Defense attorneys have said their clients never would have carried out an attack on Fort Dix, describing any talk on the tapes about an attack as nothing more than bluster. They said Omar directed the conversations and basically entrapped the defendants.

For most of the morning, the defense cross-examined John Stermel, a counter-terrorism task force officer who handled Omar as an informant. Yesterday, Stermel described Omar's background as an Egyptian citizen who immigrated to the U.S. illegally and was ensnared in a bank fraud before going to work for the FBI.

Shnewer's attorney, Rocco Cipparone, showed Stermel several transcripts of recorded conversations in which Omar complains that Shnewer was delaying any action on a plot, and that Shnewer didn't coordinate with other defendants and he didn't answer Omar's phone calls.

Another defense attorney, Mike Riley, questioned Stermel about the surveillance Shnewer and Omar supposedly conducted on Fort Dix and other military installations, such as Dover Air Force Base. Riley said the men essentially drove past the bases on public roads, sometimes filming from the car with a cell phone recorder.

"You consider driving down a road and looking at a base reconnaissance?" Riley asked.

"Yes, sir," Stermel answered.

Riley also noted that Omar was paid more money as the investigation gathered speed, until he had reached $1,500 a week.

But Assistant U.S. Attorney Mike Hammer noted an August 2006 debriefing in which Omar said that Dritan and Shain Duka, two of the defendants, were not "serious" about an attack.

"That statement about the Dukas not being serious, those aren't the words of a cooperator trying to get people in trouble so he can get paid?" Hammer asked. Stermel agreed.

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