Saturday, September 26, 2009

Zazi Trips, Shopping Led to NY Terror Threat- Bought large amount of Peroxide to made bomb.Laptop contain instruction.Hotel room traces of bomb.


Najibullah Zazi, center, is escorted off an NYPD helicopter by U.S Marshals after being extradited from Denver, Colo., to New York.


The arrest of Najibullah Zazi shows an encouraging level of cooperation between NYC police and the Feds.


A Denver man accused of plotting a terrorist attack in the United States had apparently planned to set off a bomb in New York on the most recent anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, a federal prosecutor said Friday.

That revelation came during what was otherwise a routine federal court hearing in Denver that paved the way for Najibullah Zazi, 24, to be flown to New York on Friday.

"The evidence suggests a chilling, disturbing sequence of events showing the defendant was intent on making a bomb and being in New York on 9/11, for purposes of perhaps using such items," Assistant U.S. Atty. Tim Neff told the court.

Zazi, an airport shuttle driver in Denver, was indicted on a terrorism charge Thursday by a federal grand jury in New York, but the indictment did not spell out when or where an attack was allegedly planned to take place.

Neff made the remarks during a hearing in which Magistrate Judge Craig Shaffer dismissed a charge against Zazi of making false statements to authorities, thus clearing the way for the Afghan-born man to be transferred to New York to face the terrorism charge.

At the detention hearing Friday morning, Shaffer rejected arguments by Zazi's attorney, Arthur Folsom, that Zazi should be freed on bail.

Folsom said that Zazi didn't pose a flight risk because most of his immediate family lives in Colorado and because he had neither the resources nor inclination to flee the country. Folsom argued that if Zazi had wanted to escape, he had several opportunities to do so before his arrest.

Shaffer countered that Zazi had powerful incentives for running away, including the possibility that if convicted, he could face deportation after serving his sentence. Zazi is a legal U.S. resident, not a citizen.

"He has very little reason to stay," Shaffer said. Shaffer also said that Zazi posed "substantial danger" to the community if freed.

The indictment said that Zazi and unnamed co-conspirators recently made large purchases of chemicals from beauty supply stores, including hydrogen peroxide and acetone, that can be used to make explosives. It also said Zazi had researched how to make bombs and had sought advice on mixing chemicals for explosives.

The chemicals that Zazi and others sought were the kind found in the "explosive used in the 2005 London train bombings and intended to be used in the 2001 'shoe bomb' plot by Richard Reid," the indictment said.

On Sept. 8, the indictment said, Zazi rented a car in Colorado and searched the Internet for the location of a home-improvement store in the Flushing neighborhood of Queens in New York City. Zazi then searched the company's website for information on muriatic acid, which can be used as a bomb-making component, it said.

Zazi has maintained his innocence, as has his father and a New York City imam who have also been arrested. So far authorities have only charged the three Afghan-born men with lying to investigators, which carries an eight-year maximum sentence, and not a more serious terrorism-related charge.

According to the government, agents approached Afzali Sept. 10 and showed him a photo of Najibullah Zazi, 24, a fellow Afghan immigrant who moved from Queens to Denver.

The next day, Sept. 11, FBI wiretaps caught Zazi's father telling his son he'd gotten a call from Afzali warning him the FBI was showing his photo.
The father was urging his son to call Afzali when call-waiting beeped: Afzali was on Zazi's other line.

"They asked me about you guys," the imam told the suspected terrorist, according to a transcript. "They came to ask me about your characters."
He continued, "I'm not sure what happened. And I don't want to know ...I told them that 'they are innocent, law abiding.'"

Afzali told Zazi to take comfort that the FBI was just asking around about them.

"Trust me, that is a good sign," he said. "The bad sign is for them coming to you guys and picking you up automatically."

Afzali told Zazi: "Listen, our phone call is being monitored."

Hours later, Zazi called the imam to say his rental car had vanished. Afzali allegedly asked if there was any "evidence" in the car and Zazi said no.

The car contained bomb making notes, the FBI says.

According to the government, when questioned April 17, Afzali said it was Zazi who called him, not the other way around.


According to the indictment, nine pages of notes found on Najibullah Zazi's laptop computer include formulas for making triacetone triperoxide, or TATP. The highly volatile, highly explosive compound can be made from widely available chemicals, including acetone -- the main ingredient in nail polish remover -- hydrogen peroxide, flour and muriatic acid, a diluted form of hydrochloric acid used to clean metal.

TATP was used in the 2005 London transit bombings, the 2001 Richard Reid "shoe bomb" plot and other overseas attacks. The indictment states Zazi conducted Internet research on components for explosives and made several purchases of substances that can be used to make TATP and other explosives.

According to GlobalSecurity.org, an online resource for security information, TATP is extremely sensitive to impact, temperature change and friction. Just a few hundred grams of the material produce hundreds of liters of gas in a fraction of a second, the Web site reports.




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