If true - and so far, the army is denying there is much of a story - that 5 Muslim soldiers at Fort Jackson in South Carolina are under investigation for trying to poison the base food supply is extraordinarily bad news.

This is especially true because according to one source, there is a connection to the 5 American Muslims who journeyed to Pakistan allegedly to train to be terrorists.

CBN News blog:

CBN News has learned exclusively that five Muslim soldiers at Fort Jackson in South Carolina were arrested just before Christmas. It is unclear whether the men are still in custody. The five were part of the Arabic Translation program at the base.

Patrick Jones, the Deputy Public Affairs Officer for Fort Jackson, confirmed for CBN News yesterday afternoon that an investigation was ongoing .

Prior to this posting, CBN News learned that these details were also confirmed by a government official with knowledge of the investigation.

The men are suspected of trying to poison the food supply at Fort Jackson.

A source with intimate knowledge of the investigation, which is ongoing, told CBN News investigators suspect the "Fort Jackson Five" may have been in contact with the group of five Washington, DC area Muslims that traveled to Pakistan to wage jihad against U.S. troops in December. That group was arrested by Pakistani authorities, also just before Christmas.

Why the secrecy?

Jen Rubin:

I spoke with a source knowledgeable about the Army's anti-terrorism training and the progress of the Fort Jackson investigation. He makes several key points. First, while Army spokesman Chris Gray pronounced that "there is no credible information to support the allegations" in the poisoning case, this is bellied by the fact that five individuals were arrested. So my source asks, "If that's true, then this was a miscarriage of justice!"

Second, had the Fort Jackson incident come to light before release of the Fort Hood review, it would have been very difficult to give such short shrift to the jihadist motivation of Major Nadal Hasan. Nor would it be possible for the arrest of five Muslim individuals accused of poisoning fellow soldiers to have gone unnoticed at the "highest levels" of the Department of Defense. The only rational conclusion is that the Army worked furiously to keep the Ford Jackson incident under the media radar and to proceed with the Fort Hood whitewash. He says bluntly, "I think the DOD culpability and involvement at the highest levels is much more direct. I'm told they were directly keeping a lid on this to prevent derailing what they were doing with the Fort Hood report." The source predicts that the Army will continue its "nothing to see here, move along" reaction to the Fort Jackson incident.

Intelligent speculation - but that's all it is.

I would think we have a right to know if there is an active terrorist cell in the United States army. But then, that would contradict everything the Obama administration has tried to do with regard to domestic terror cells. And the military obviously, as shown by the Fort Hood report, simply does not want to deal with the problem.

I fear the only way this will change is if an attack is carried out by Muslim soldiers on civilians. And then, of course, it will be too late.

Note: The original headline to this piece and a reference in the body of the post mentioned that the soldiers were "arrested." This is not the case. They were never detained, only under investigation.