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| Queens raids: FBI probe into Denver-based cell plotting attack on 9/11 scale | |
| 2009-09-17 | |
| A suspected Al Qaeda cell - the first uncovered in the U.S. since 9/11 - drew round-the-clock FBI surveillance Tuesday as authorities said they thwarted its plans for a major terror attack. Scores of FBI agents inundated Denver as they closed the noose on the five-man cabal with ties to World Trade Center mastermind Osama Bin Laden's terrorist group, sources told the Daily News. One of the suspects visited New York last week toting bomb-making plans after a trip to Pakistan - home to most of Al Qaeda's leadership, sources said. "The FBI is seriously spooked about these guys," a former senior counterterrorism official told The News. "This is not some ... FBI informant-driven case. This is the real thing." Najibullah Zazi, seen last week praying and chatting with other worshipers at the Masjid Hazrat-I-Abu Bakr Islamic Center in Queens, was one of the quintet under intense scrutiny, sources said. He recently traveled to Pakistan, where Al Qaeda's major leaders - including Bin Laden - remain hunkered down. Zazi - known around the mosque as "Naji" - ran a coffee and doughnut cart in Manhattan before moving to suburban Denver this year, other members of the center said Tuesday. He was described as a religious man, sporting a long, bushy beard, who hailed from eastern Afghanistan. Interviewed outside Denver, Zazi said he knows he is under investigation but is innocent. Zazi apparently lived recently in the same Flushing neighborhood where FBI agents swarmed into three apartments this week, bashing down doors and carrying search warrants seeking bomb-making materials. "I didn't know what he was up to," said mosque President Abdulrahman Jalili, 58, after he was contacted by the FBI about Zazi. "Islam is against terrorism. It is a religion of peace."
Red flags about an impending attack went up last week when Zazi visited with several people in a single day and there was worrisome information collected from wiretaps, sources said. Zazi was stopped at the George Washington Bridge on his way into the city. Authorities later seized his rental car from a Queens street, sources said. Two mosque members said Zazi was apolitical. "I haven't seen him talk politics," said Mohammad Aziz, 51, of Queens, who hosted a dinner for the suspect and a local imam two years ago. Zazi, who has a wife in Pakistan, said he was coming to New York to renew his peddler's license for the coffee wagon. The Queens apartment raids were triggered by the Denver investigation, the operative's New York visit and the timing of the upcoming UN General Assembly. New York authorities also detained several men - later released - in a hunt for bomb-making components, explosive powders and fuses. "The hallway was filled with guys with armor," said one man awakened when the FBI broke down a the door of a neighbor with ties to the mosque. "Heavy armor." Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said unspecified material was seized from the apartments and shipped for analysis. | |
| Posted by:trailing wife |
| #2 FBI unit set for more anti-terror raids in Queens; Colorado home raided FBI agents with bomb-sniffing dogs Wednesday raided the Colorado apartment of an Afghan national linked to Al Qaeda and a plot to attack the New York City subway system. Simultaneously, authorities swarmed over a nearby home believed to belong to a relative of Najibullah Zazi, hauling out boxes of evidence. Earlier Queens raids turned up nine knapsacks and cell phones, raising concerns about bombers detonating simultaneous blasts as they did in the 2004 attack that killed 191 commuters in Spain. |
| Posted by: ed 2009-09-17 01:30 |
| #1 In light of the story posted here a few days ago about a prediction of another attack here right around the current time, this story - and that one, as well - is even more interesting. |
| Posted by: Mike N. 2009-09-17 00:54 |