Mass. man arrested for alleged terror attack plots-'Jihadist' arrested over plot to kill US forces

Tarek Mehanna allegedly travelled to the Middle East for terror training

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Boston Police on duty.

A Massachusetts man has been arrested on federal terrorism-related charges on suspicion of planning attacks inside and outside the United States.

Tarek Mehanna, 27, a resident of Massachusetts, also allegedly sought with co-conspirators to obtain weapons to carry out a random attack on a shopping mall, acting US attorney Michael Loucks said in a statement.

Mehanna is accused of conspiring with a man named Ahmad Abousamra and others from 2001 to May 2008 "to kill, kidnap, maim or injure persons or damage property in a foreign country and extraterritorial homicide of a US national," the statement said.

A person familiar with the investigation who spoke on condition of anonymity says the man was arrested early Wednesday. The person was not authorized to divulge details of the investigation.

The person says the man is from the Boston suburb of Sudbury and had two co-conspirators.

Tarek Mehanna (TEH'-rek meh-HAH'-nah), of Sudbury, was arrested in November 2008 on suspicion of lying to authorities about the whereabouts of a man who trained with al-Qaida members with the goal of overthrowing the Somali government.

Mehanna pleaded not guilty and was released on bail. Officials would not immediately say Wednesday whether the man arrested was him.

U.S. federal prosecutors have charged a Massachusetts man with conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists, alleging he and co-conspirators traveled to the Middle East seeking training, discussed attacking a shopping center, and distributed videos promoting holy war.

Tarek Mehanna, 27, from Sudbury, Massachusetts, had been previously indicted in January 2009 for making false statements to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other officials in connection with a terrorism investigation, the U.S. Justice Department said in a news release on Wednesday.

"Mehanna and the co-conspirators had multiple conversations about obtaining automatic weapons and randomly shooting people in a shopping mall, and that the conversations went so far as to discuss the logistics of a mall attack, including coordination, weapons needed and the possibility of attacking emergency responders," the Justice Department said.

Mehanna was arrested at his home on Wednesday morning.

Prosecutors allege that from 2001 to 2008 Mehanna conspired with a man named Ahmad Abousamra and others in an attempt to kill, kidnap or injure people in the United States.

The charges accuse Mehanna and co-conspirators of talking about their desire to participate in Islamist holy war and of their desire to die on the battlefield.

The case comes less than a month after an Afghan-born man, Najibullah Zazi, was accused of plotting a bomb attack against the United States.

Authorities say Zazi took a bomb-making course at an al Qaeda training camp in Pakistan, had bomb-making notes on his laptop computer and acquired bomb-making materials similar to those used in the 2005 London attacks, buying acetone and hydrogen peroxide at beauty supply stores.

Zazi, an Afghan immigrant and permanent U.S. resident, was indicted late last month on a charge of conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction. He pleaded not guilty and was ordered held in prison without bail.

Tarek Mehanna, 27, was held in Sudbury, a suburb of Boston, Massachusetts, and charged with conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists.

He is also accused of conspiring to kill people overseas and of seeking terrorist training in the Middle East.

At least two other co-conspirators were involved, officials said.

Detailing the charge against Mr Mehanna, US prosecutors accused him and his alleged co-conspirators of discussing how to obtain automatic weapons before "randomly shooting people in a shopping mall".

They allegedly discussed "the logistics of a mall attack, including co-ordination, weapons needed and the possibility of attacking emergency responders," acting US Attorney Michael Loucks said.

However, the plan was eventually abandoned, prosecutors said, because the conspirators could not get hold of the necessary weapons.

The charge alleges that from about 2001 to May 2008, Mr Mehanna conspired with others, plotting to provide material support and resources for use in carrying out a conspiracy to kill, kidnap, maim or injure persons or damage property in a foreign country and the killing of US nationals outside the US.

"They discussed their desire to participate in violent jihad against American interests and that they would talk about fighting jihad and their desire to die on the battlefield," he said.

They allegedly attempted to radicalise others by watching and distributing jihadi videos.

Mr Mehanna and two of his associates also allegedly travelled to the Middle East in February 2004 to attend a terrorist training camp with the aim of fighting US and allied forces in Iraq.

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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.

He allegedly denied tipping Zazi to the probe or asking about evidence in the car - and even denied saying the call was being taped.

Kuby said that charge made no sense. "Why on earth would he lie about the contents of a conversation that he knows is being recorded?" he said. "It would be insane for him to lie about that!"

Kuby said his client might have been confused about who called whom, but was trying to help. "The government asked him to make contact with (Zazi) and find out what he was up to," Kuby said. "So he left out a bunch of things. He's not a trained stenographer. He is doing everything they want him to do."

Prosecutors are skeptical. "Why would he ask Zazi about 'evidence' in his car?" said one official close to the case.

Cousin John Afzali, 42, manager of the family-owned pizzeria Valentino's, called the charges "bogus."

"He's a good guy. He's not extreme. I don't think they got the right person," he said.

Neighbors and friends said they couldn't image Afzali was mixed up in terrorism.

"This guy's got more money than God," said Steven Hayes, 37, who went to Parsons Junior High and Jamaica High School with Afzali. "I'm shocked. Not this guy."

He is famous in the neighborhood for his parade of fancy new cars, from Jaguars to BMWs to Hummers, which he polishes lovingly in his driveway.

"Whatever the latest car comes out, he's got it," said neighbor Yossi Matato, who said he recently saw a new white Jaguar at the house.

The president of the Masjid Al-Saaliheen mosque in Fresh Meadows, who did not want his name used, said Afzali came to see him Friday so upset that he cried.

"He was very sad and scared. He didn't want to be involved," the mosque president said. "He said, 'they asked me questions but I had no idea. I hope they don't turn it around on me.'"

He said yesterday's celebation of the annual Eid holiday was ruined for Muslims worried about what the arrests meant. "The whole community is in full upside-down shock. Everybody is afraid, everybody is talking about it," the imam said.

Zazi the suspect

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.

Zazi, 24, was arrested with his father in Colorado on Saturday while the imam, a one-time police informant named Ahmad Wais Afzali, 37, was arrested in New York. All three have been living in the United States for years.

The FBI says it found a laptop in Zazi's rented car with instructions on how to make, handle and detonate explosives.

Whether or not the allegations outlined by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in court papers are true, the picture they paint would make this case among the most serious within U.S. borders since the attacks of September 11, 2001.

"Here's a guy who apparently was trained in Pakistan, had knowledge of bomb-making and was trying to assemble a team. That's our worst nightmare, quite frankly," said Michael Sheehan, a former counterterrorism chief for New York police and now a private consultant.

When police on September 14 searched an apartment in the New York City borough of Queens that Zazi had visited, they told local media they confiscated cell phones and at least nine empty backpacks. The Madrid train bombings that killed 191 people involved backpacks stuffed with explosives that were detonated via cell phones.

The case also underscores how, after the September 11 attacks and the transit bombings in Madrid in 2004 and London in 2005, U.S. law enforcement has been more aggressive in making arrests even as rights groups accuse them of being overly zealous.

Zazi caught red handed buying large amount of peroxide products believe to made Bomb.

Employees at several beauty supply stores in Aurora told CNN that federal agents visited their stores as part of the investigation, which led to Zazi's arrest Saturday. Some visits by federal agents were as recent as last week, they said.

Federal agents visited at least two other stores in recent weeks, workers at those stores told CNN, while a third said it had received phone calls from the FBI. Store workers said agents showed them photographs of several people during one visit, and a worker at one store said he recognized Zazi after seeing pictures of him on television.

Video from Beauty Supply Warehouse in Aurora from July 25 and August 28 show a man believed to be Zazi in the store. In the first video, the man is seen at the checkout counter putting a hydrogen peroxide product bottle on the counter, while the rest of the bottles are in his cart. He also purchases hair rollers and pins and a shower cap.

The second video shows the same man walking up and down a store aisle until he reaches some hydrogen peroxide product bottles. He puts a dozen of them into his shopping cart.

Receipts from the store show that CNN obtained show that the man bought six bottles of peroxide in July, and a dozen in August. The store said it provided the same receipts to the FBI.

Beauty Supply Warehouse CEO Karan Hoss tells CNN he also voluntarily provided the two surveillance videos to the FBI. He said they approached his store last week.

"They asked, 'Have you had any customers buying large numbers of hydrogen peroxide?' " he said.

Hoss said his staff examined its records and found they had video surveillance that appeared to correspond to the sales in question.

If convicted, the 24-year-old Zazi faces a potential sentence of life in prison.

"We believe any imminent threat arising from this case has been disrupted, but as always, we remind the American public to be vigilant and to report any suspicious activity to law enforcement," Attorney General Eric Holder said in a statement.

Hydrogen Peroxide + Acetone can be powerful Bomb

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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Terror Suspect Had Bomb Guide, Authorities Say

Najibullah Zazi was arrested by F.B.I. agents in Aurora, Colo., late Saturday.


Najibullah Zazi is accused of making false statements to officials about an alleged bomb plot in the United States.


Najibullah Zazi arrives for questioning at the Byron G. Rogers Federal Building in downtown Denver. Worked as airpost shuttle bus driver.

* Najibullah Zazi's arrest followed 3 days of questioning

* All three men accused of lying to federal agents

* FBI: laptop instructions would yield explosive charge

A Colorado man, his father and an accused accomplice in New York are to appear in federal court on Monday on charges of lying to federal agents about a plot to blow up unspecified targets in the United States, the U.S. Department of Justice said.

Najibullah Zazi, 24, a native of Afghanistan who works as an airport shuttle bus driver, was questioned by the FBI for three days. He and his father, Mohammed Wali Zazi, 53, were taken into custody on Saturday at an apartment in the Denver suburb of Aurora.

Also arrested was Ahmad Wais Afzali, 37, a native of Afghanistan who was living in the Queens borough of New York City, a Department of Justice spokesman said.

Authorities today pressed an urgent investigation into whether a Denver-area airport shuttle driver, his father and associates in New York were part of the first operational Al Qaeda-affiliated terrorist plot on U.S. soil since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and what the alleged targets might have been.

Najibullah Zazi, 24, an Afghan emigre, and his father, Mohammed Wali Zazi, 53, were arrested late Saturday at their town house in the Denver suburb of Aurora. They had undergone three days of questioning by the FBI but had stopped cooperating, authorities said. Also arrested was Ahmad Wais Afzali, 37, of Flushing, N.Y., who was described in court documents as an informant for the New York Police Department.

The court documents suggest that Afzali tried to warn Zazi about authorities' interest in him and his alleged associates in New York. "I was exposed to something yesterday from law enforcement," Afzali said, referring to an interview he had with police, in a call that was intercepted, the documents said. "And they came to ask me about your characters."

While in New York this month, Zazi's vehicle was pulled over and searched. Authorities also raided three apartments in Queens and questioned residents, including an Afghan immigrant who grew up with Zazi.

Reason for being are suspects ?

FBI agents alleged in court documents today that Zazi had admitted receiving weapons and explosives training from Al Qaeda operatives in Pakistan last year. In court documents and interviews, they also alleged that a handwritten recipe for homemade explosives was found on Zazi's laptop computer, and said it would have produced a bomb of the same size and type used in the deadly 2005 attacks on London's subways and buses. Authorities said they had seized nine new backpacks during last week's raids in New York.

In announcing the charges early this morning, Assistant U.S. Atty. Gen. David Kris said agents are working around the clock, domestically and internationally, in "an ongoing and fast-paced investigation."

Kris acknowledged that authorities "have no specific information regarding the timing, location or target of any planned attack." But he said the alleged plot focused on an effort to detonate explosive devices somewhere in the United States.

When authorities interviewed him Sept. 16, Zazi denied knowing about the handwritten notes about explosives on his laptop, and said he did not write them, court documents say.

And Zazi maintained his innocence on at least one phone call that was secretly intercepted on an FBI wiretap last week. In a conversation with Afzali, Zazi said he had "just [gone] to Pakistan, I didn't do anything wrong."

What is the alleged target of bombing ?

According to news reports, authorities also searched a New York truck rental company, looking for evidence that some of Zazi's alleged associates were plotting a truck bomb.

Other information suggests the men were targeting a sports arena, mass transit hub or other "soft" civilian target with huge crowds of people, authorities said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"The arrests ... are part of an ongoing and fast-paced investigation," David Kris, assistant attorney general for national security, said in a statement.

The plot may have been targeting a major transportation center, like a large railroad or subway station, sources close to the investigation told CNN on Thursday. There were plans for an attack, presumably in the New York area, where crowds are large and security screening for nonairport travelers is lax, the sources said.Two sources familiar with the investigation said the younger Zazi had video of New York's Grand Central Terminal, a massive junction of rail and subway lines, as well as shops and restaurants, which see an average of more than a half million visitors per day.

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