(AP) Suspects in 2006 terror plot, pictured in top row, (left to right): Tanvir Hussain, Assad Sarwar, Umar Islam, Waheed Zaman. Bottom row (left to right): Mohammed Gulzar, Arafat Waheed Khan, Ibrahim Savant and Abdul Ali.

I stared into the alleged faces of terror today … and they didn’t care.They were the eight British Muslim men charged with plotting to blow up planes heading from London to the States … apparently to kill all on board. “All,” according to the British prosecutor, “in the name of Islam.”

The prosecutor went on to say that the eight were “indifferent” to the possible huge civilian casualties their political statement would make. You could tell that from their body language. As I watched via closed circuit video in a room next to the Woolwich Crown Court House in east London, they sat expressionless, even bored.

The testimony today was anything but boring, though. While there’s been much reported on the plot since it was broken up in August 2006, some of it has been secondhand and some of it hasn’t come out at all.

Like the fact that as many 18 planes were possibly going to be targeted by the alleged terrorists, almost all headed for the U.S. from London, to places like New York, Chicago, Denver and San Francisco. When one of the suspects was asked by authorities why detailed information about flights to the U.S. was loaded onto his zip drive he is reported to have said, “Oh they’re U.S. holiday destinations.” Some holiday.

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Some people might get scared when they hear their name spoken and their work quoted by Al Qaeda leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri on a propaganda tape.

Dr. Jarret Brachman was actually a bit flattered.

“It’s surreal these guys are quoting our work …” he told me. “To see my name on these videos … it’s strange … but at the same time it speaks to the fact we’re hitting them where it hurts. These guys wouldn’t be wasting their time responding to our articles unless we were saying something right.”

Brachman is research director of the Combating Terrorism Center at the West Point Military Academy on the Hudson River, about an hour north of New York City. He’s a PhD, a CIA fellow, and one of the leading experts in terrorism in the country. He and others who’ve devoted their careers to learning more about the people trying to kill us are now sharing their knowledge with cadets who will soon be headed overseas to Iraq and Afghanistan.

The CTC is a privately-funded think tank, focusing on terrorism and counter terrorism, homeland security and weapons of mass destruction. They collect reams of material from the terrorists themselves, some of it seized by the military during raids, but much of it pulled right off the internet. they have an extensive collection of videos and documents, even Al Qaeda expense forms. “Know your enemy” is the overwhelming theme at the school.

The center’s director, Lt. Col. Joe Felter quoted the Chinese philosopher Sun Tzu: “Know your enemy. know your enemy. We have to understand who we’re fighting.”

Brachman echoes that. “There’s no way we will defeat AQ in the long run unless we understand them better than they understand themselves.”

Being privately funded allows the center unusual freedom in a military environment. It allows them to choose subject matter and instructors without undue influence or overwhelming red tape but sharing is easier too.

“We occupy a really unique space in this fight …” Brachman told me. “Specialists and academics in a military institution. this allows us to have big thoughts on how to defeat the enemy with real time implications. we have a better strategic sense of who the enemy is and we’re finding ways to defeat AQ (Al Qaeda) by using their own words against them.”

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