From left: Najibullah Zazi; Ahmad Wais Afzali, imam of a Queens mosque; and Mohammed Wali Zazi, Najibullah's father.The imam previously was a police informer.
FBI agents arrested Najibullah Zazi, 24, late Saturday in Aurora, Colo. The Justice Department says that he worked for more than a year on an Al Qaeda plot to detonate a weapon of mass destruction in the United States.
Najibullah Zazi tried to cook up explosives, authorities say.
An Afghan immigrant who received explosives training from al-Qaeda went from one beauty-supply store to another, buying up large quantities of hydrogen peroxide and nail-polish remover, in a chilling plot to build bombs for attacks on U.S. soil, authorities charged yesterday.
Najibullah Zazi, 24, a shuttle driver at the Denver airport, was indicted in New York on charges of conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction. Investigators found bomb-making instructions on his computer's hard drive and said Zazi used a hotel room in Colorado to try to cook up explosives a few weeks ago before a trip to New York.
The extent of Zazi's ties to al-Qaeda was unclear, but if the allegations prove true, this could be the first operating al-Qaeda cell to be uncovered inside the United States since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Over the last few days, talk of the possible plot set off the most intense flurry of national terrorism warnings since the aftermath of 9/11.
Prosecutors said they had yet to establish exactly when and where the Zazi attacks were supposed to take place. But Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said in Washington: "We believe any imminent threat arising from this case has been disrupted."
The extent of Zazi's ties to al-Qaeda was unclear, but if the allegations prove true, this could be the first operating al-Qaeda cell to be uncovered inside the United States since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Over the last few days, talk of the possible plot set off the most intense flurry of national terrorism warnings since the aftermath of 9/11.
A law enforcement official said yesterday that Zazi had associates in New York who were in on the plot.
Zazi was arrested in Denver last weekend and was charged along with his father and a New York imam with lying to investigators. Authorities said in the last few days that they feared Zazi and others might have been planning to detonate homemade bombs on New York trains, and warnings went out to transit systems, stadiums, and hotels nationwide.
Explosives built with hydrogen peroxide killed 52 people four years ago in the London transit system. They are easy to conceal and detonate, and last week's warnings asked authorities to be on the lookout for them.
A law enforcement official said yesterday that authorities had been so worried about Zazi - and that his Sept. 10 trip to New York coincided with a visit by President Obama - that they considered arresting him as soon as he reached the city.
Zazi left a Denver court yesterday without commenting and will be transferred to New York. He and his attorney have denied he is a terrorist.
In two unrelated terrorism cases elsewhere around the country yesterday:
Michael C. Finton, a 29-year-old man who idolized American-born Taliban soldier John Walker Lindh, was arrested after attempting to detonate what he thought was a bomb inside a van outside a federal courthouse in Springfield, Ill., officials said. FBI agents had infiltrated the alleged plot months ago.
Two North Carolina men under arrest since July on international terrorism charges were also accused by prosecutors of plotting to kill U.S. military personnel. A superseding indictment returned against Daniel Patrick Boyd and Hysen Sherifi is the first time authorities have said the homegrown terrorism ring had specific targets.
In the Zazi case, a government motion seeking to deny bail laid out a chronology of the alleged scheme, which prosecutors said had been in the works for as much as a year. The court papers filed in Brooklyn federal court also refer to "others" who bought bomb materials with Zazi.
According to prosecutors' account, Zazi - a legal U.S. resident who immigrated in 1999 - began plotting as early as August 2008 to "use one or more weapons of mass destruction." That was when he and others traveled from Newark, N.J., to Pakistan, where he received the explosives training, prosecutors said.
Within days of returning from Pakistan in early 2009, he moved to the Denver suburb of Aurora, where he used a computer to research bomb ingredients and to look up beauty-supply stores where he could buy them, according to prosecutors.
During the summer, Zazi and three unidentified associates bought "unusually large quantities" of hydrogen peroxide and acetone - a flammable solvent found in nail-polish remover - from beauty-supply stores in the Denver area, prosecutors said.
The affidavit .
Several of the officials said it was likely that Najibullah Zazi will be charged with providing material support to a known terrorist organization based on his admission that he trained in weapons and explosives at an Al Qaeda camp in Pakistan last year. That admission was cited in an FBI affidavit unsealed over the weekend.
The affidavit also alleges that authorities found images on Najibullah Zazi's laptop of nine pages of notes on making explosives and fuses, apparently in his own handwriting. In addition, the affidavit alleges that authorities have found other information linking Zazi to the suspected plot, including his fingerprints on a small electronic scale and double-A batteries, which are often used in making bombs.
Zazi, who had been monitored by authorities for some time after returning from a trip to Pakistan, was stopped on a New York bridge on Sept. 10 after driving from Colorado on what he said was a trip to settle a business deal that had gone sour.
New York police checked his car and allowed him to leave, according to court documents. Soon after, police showed pictures of Zazi and several others to Afzali, the imam of a Queens mosque who had worked as a police informant in the past.
Why suspects?
azi was an airport shuttle-bus driver who journeyed to Pakistan in August 2008 for four months of training in weapons and explosives at the hands of operatives with ties to al-Qaida, investigators wrote in court papers. He returned to the U.S. in January, preparing to use the skills he had amassed, investigators wrote.
Zazi and three unidentified helpers purchased "unusually large quantities" of hydrogen peroxide and acetone products in July and August from beauty shops in and around Aurora, Colo., prosecutors wrote, citing surveillance video and receipts for "Ms. K Liquid 40 Volume" and other products. The aides traveled from New York to Denver to assist Zazi, using stolen credit cards, the Associated Press reported.
Notes that authorities discovered in a file on Zazi's computer hard drive describe explosives including triacetone triperoxide, the chemical used in the 2005 London train bombings. Zazi accessed the document on his laptop in June and July 2009, searching the Internet for "hydrochloric acid" and bookmarking a site on "lab safety," prosecutors Jeffrey Knox, Berit Berger and David Bitkower wrote.
On Sept. 6 and 7, authorities said, Zazi rented a suite in a hotel in Aurora, where FBI agents later detected "the presence of acetone ... in the vent above the stove." The bomb-making instructions mention heating the components to make them "highly concentrated," prosecutors said.
On Sept. 9, Zazi rented a car, drove to and stayed overnight in a Queens apartment, where investigators later found backpacks, cellphones and an electronic scale, which FBI agents say could have been used to weigh bomb components.
Also Thursday, a well-known New York imam, Ahmad Wais Afzali, 37, appeared in federal District Court in Brooklyn, where a magistrate set $1.5 million bail allowing for his release under electronic surveillance. Afzali was overheard on recorded conversations reportedly warning Zazi's father about law-enforcement interest earlier this month.
New York police intelligence-unit officers, who had used the imam as a source in the past, consulted Afzali about the unfolding investigation, setting off a chain of events in which Afzali became a target, accused of lying to authorities.
National-security experts said that although much about the case remains unclear, including the possible target of the plot, it is significant.
"This rises to the top in terms of level of concern in the post-9/11 environment, given what appears to be direct connections to al-Qaida in Pakistan, clear intent to perpetrate an attack, and what appears to have been final stages of preparation," said Juan Zarate, deputy national-security adviser for counterterrorism to President George W. Bush.
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