U.S. authorities have foiled a plot to attack John F. Kennedy (JFK) International Airport in New York and arrested three suspects in the plot, including a former member of Guyana's parliament, police said on June 2.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) said it had not found any linkage between al-Qaida and the plot and pointed to an international network of Muslim extremists from the United States, Guyana and Trinidad.

Authorities were searching for a fourth suspect in connection with the plot, which was only at its planning stages.

U.S. officials said the plotters sought to blow up the airport's jet fuel tanks and part of a pipeline that services the airport.

Russell Defreitas, a former cargo worker at JFK, was taken into custody in Brooklyn, New York, for suspected connection to the plan on June 1.

The former cargo worker, originally from Guyana, had been under surveillance and allegedly met with a radical group in Trinidad.

Roslynn R. Mauskopf, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, told a press conference that the result would be "unthinkable" if the plot was carried out.

The city's police commissioner Raymond Kelly said police have remained vigilant all the time and the arrests were made before suspects fled the country.

Two others were arrested in Trinidad and Tobago on U.S. warrants. They were identified as Abdul Kadir, a citizen of Guyana and former member of its parliament, and Kareem Ibrahim, a citizen of Trinidad and Tobago.

In Port-of-Spain, police chief Trevor Trevor Paul said the FBI "did inform the Trinidad law enforcement authorities of the fact that three men were wanted in the U.S. on warrants in connection with a terrorist plot."

On June 1, Kadir was arrested boarding a flight to Venezuela from the city's Piarco International Airport.

He served in Guyana's parliament until last year when it was disbanded before general elections in the country on the north coast of South America.

Ibrahim, 56, was picked up on June 2 close to his home some 15 minutes from the Piarco airport, Trinidad police said.

They added that the investigation was being headed by the FBI and Trinidadian police have been working closely with U.S. authorities.

The fourth was named as Abdel Nur, a citizen of Guyana believed to be at large in Trinidad and Tobago, police said. Authorities said Kadir and Nur were longtime associates of a Trinidadian radical Muslim group.

The United States plans to seek their extradition.

According to authorities, the plot dated from January 2006 and the plot tapped into an international network of Muslim extremists from the United States, Guyana and Trinidad.

JFK handles on average over 1,000 flights daily, and handles annually approximately 45 million passengers and over 1.5 million tons of cargo.

The arrests mark the latest in a series of alleged homegrown terrorism plots targeting high-profile U.S. landmarks.

A year ago, seven men were arrested in what officials called the early stages of a plot to blow up the Sears Tower in Chicago and destroy FBI offices and other buildings.

A month later, authorities broke up a plot to bomb underwater New York city train tunnels to flood lower Manhattan.

Six people were arrested a month ago in an alleged plot to unleash a bloody rampage in New Jersey.