Mass. Man Arrested in Terrorism Case

[Bailey]

By ABBY GOODNOUGH and LIZ ROBBINS
Published: October 21, 2009

BOSTON — A pharmacist living with his parents in the suburbs of Boston was arrested on Wednesday on federal terrorism charges. He was accused of conspiring to attack people at a shopping mall in the United States, and to attack two members of the executive branch of the federal government.

The man, Tarek Mehanna, 27, was charged with conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists. The conspiracy occurred from 2001 to 2008, the acting United States attorney, Michael K. Loucks, said at a news conference in Boston Wednesday.

But prosecutors said Mr. Mehanna, born and raised in Massachusetts, was unsuccessful in acquiring weapons to carry out the attack, and was also repeatedly rejected by terrorist groups in his efforts to join them.

Mr. Mehanna was ordered held without bail on Wednesday afternoon by Judge Leo T. Sorokin of the federal court here. At the hearing, Mr. Mehanna was defiant before Judge Sorokin, at first refusing to stand when called. “I’d prefer not to,” Mr. Mehanna said.

Mr. Mehanna’s father, sitting in the courtroom, apparently whispered to him that he should comply. Then, when Mr. Mehanna did stand, he kicked over his chair in anger. Wearing a black hooded sweatshirt, black track pants and black sneakers, Mr. Mehanna kept his hands in his pockets while answering the judge’s questions.

His next court appearance, a detention and probable cause hearing, is scheduled for Oct. 30.

Prosecutors said Mr. Mehanna had conspired with others — including Ahmad Abousamra, who authorities said had fled to Syria, and an unnamed informant helping investigators with the case. They had “multiple conversations” about carrying out attacks in and outside of the United States, prosecutors said.

“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,” Mr. Loucks said, adding that the three men made plans to “randomly shoot people” in a mall.

But Mr. Loucks said Mr. Mehanna could not obtain the automatic weapons he wanted to carry out the attack.

The authorities did not name the two members of the executive branch whom they said Mr. Mehanna and his associates had chosen as targets. Neither is now in office, Mr. Loucks said, and neither was ever in danger from the plot.

Mr. Mehanna’s lawyer, J. W. Carney Jr., spoke briefly after the hearing. “This is the type of case that challenges our commitment and faith in the United States Constitution,” Mr. Carney said. “Our country is respected around the world because we presume people are innocent, and we require the government to prove its allegations in open court at a trial.”

In May 2008, Mr. Mehanna graduated from the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy, where his father is a professor of medicinal chemistry. Mr. Mehanna has been living with his parents in a large house on a cul-de-sac in Sudbury, Mass., an affluent Boston suburb.

Neighbors said they were shocked by his arrest. Chafic Maalouf, 47, who lives down the block from the Mehanna family, said he thought the younger Mr. Mehanna, whom he sometimes saw mowing the lawn, had worked as a pharmacy technician at a Walgreen drug store in Marlboro, Mass.

“He was very sweet, soft-spoken — he seemed so harmless,” Mr. Maalouf said. “He has a beard and a dark complexion, so to the average American he fits the terrorist profile,” he added. “But if you looked in his eyes, he seemed to be a very genuine, kind, loving person.”

Activity swirled in and out of the Mehanna house on Wednesday. Two women, including Mr. Mehanna’s mother, left in the afternoon in a silver four-door Mercedes. A car with New Hampshire license plates and a Massachusetts child care services placard in the front window was also parked in the driveway.

At the time of his arrest, Mr. Mehanna was free on bail from an earlier arrest, in November 2008 at Logan airport, when he was charged with lying to federal investigators in a 2006 interview. Prosecutors said Mr. Mehanna had lied about his contact with a friend. Daniel Maldonado, and about where Mr. Maldonado was living at the time.

Mr. Mehanna, prosecutors said, had sought to obtain automatic weapons from Mr. Maldonado, who at the time was a terrorism suspect. Mr. Maldonado, a native of Massachusetts, is now serving a 10-year prison sentence for training with Al Qaeda in Somalia.

The complaint filed on Wednesday also states that Mr. Mehanna and his associates traveled to Pakistan, Iraq, Syria and Yemen, seeking training from various terrorist groups to fight against American soldiers. But the groups rejected their efforts to join them.

To fuel their fervor for jihad activities, Mr. Mehanna and his associates obtained, watched and distributed videos of an attack in Iraq and of the mutilation of an American soldier, according to the complaint.

Mr. Mehanna is the fifth person living in the United States to be arrested on terrorism charges in the past five months. Investigators said that his failed conspiracy was not on the same scale as the two most recent previous cases.

Najibullah Zazi, a 24-year-old legal immigrant from Afghanistan who drove a shuttle bus in Denver, was arrested last month in Colorado on charges of terrorism conspiracy. He was accused of trying to carry out a plot in New York around the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

In July, Daniel P. Boyd, 39, and six other men, including his two sons, were charged in North Carolina with stockpiling automatic weapons and traveling abroad numerous times to participate in jihadist movements.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/22/us...ml?_r=1&ref=us

[Songline]

I only wonder why they have not cracked down on more in Mass. NJ. Wash DC. There are so many cells;
I am afraid we are asleep at the wheel.

About a year ago I had a conversation with a man in a restaurant in NYC. He was working in a middle eastern Restaurant and boasting about one of the weapons they have is to overpopulate and that in Mass the Arab/islamic population is huge and getting larger. He then added that New Jersey and Was. DC is saturated too. With a smirk he said we will outnumber by 2012 and win by 2024.
I never went back to that restaurant.

[Sandi48]

About a year ago I had a conversation with a man in a restaurant in NYC. He was working in a middle eastern Restaurant and boasting about one of the weapons they have is to overpopulate and that in Mass the Arab/islamic population is huge and getting larger. He then added that New Jersey and Was. DC is saturated too. With a smirk he said we will outnumber by 2012 and win by 2024.

OMG! How scary is that!

[Songline]

Originally Posted by Sandi48

OMG! How scary is that!

What is even more scary is that our government does know.

[Bailey]

Najibullah Zazi, Denver man accused in N.Y. terror plot, pleads guilty

By Spencer S. Hsu and Carrie Johnson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, February 22, 2010; 4:56 PM

An Afghan immigrant pleaded guilty Monday to planning to bomb New York City's subway system around last year's anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, in what authorities called the group's most serious domestic terrorism plot in nearly two decades.

Najibullah Zazi, 25, a former Denver airport shuttle driver and New York street vendor, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York. He also admitted to conspiring to commit murder overseas and to supporting terrorists. Under terms of a plea deal, Zazi faces a life sentence of prison without parole.

Zazi said in court that he planned a "martyrdom operation" in Manhattan after training with al-Qaeda in Pakistan, the Reuters news service reported, indicating increased cooperation by Zazi and associates in providing intelligence to U.S. investigators.

He was accused of trying to mix triacetone triperoxide, a chemical explosive used in the 2005 London train bombings, using hair care products bought by associates last summer in beauty shops in a Denver suburb.

Zazi said he flushed the components of the explosive down a toilet after being caught up in an apparent traffic stop Sept. 10 on New York City's George Washington Bridge, en route from Colorado, the Associated Press reported. Law enforcement authorities had been tracking him but were uncertain as to his intentions.

Zazi abandoned plans to stage the attack between Sept. 14 and 16 and returned to Denver, the Justice Department said Monday. When he fled, investigators conducted a series of raids at locations, including a Queens apartment building where Zazi had stayed, and found backpacks, cellphones and an electronic scale that FBI agents say could have been used to weigh possible bomb components.

Authorities said Zazi traveled to Pakistan from August 2008 to January 2009 to join the Taliban, where he received weapons and explosives training to wage jihad overseas. He was recruited by al-Qaeda and redirected to commit a suicide attack against a U.S target, such as New York City, taking advantage of his status as a legal permanent U.S. resident, which allowed him to travel with less scrutiny.

Prosecutors said Zazi was also known as "Salahuddin," or Saladin, the name of the 12th-century Muslim leader who ruled Syria and Egypt and battled Europe's Crusaders, also known as Salah al-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub.

Terrorism analysts called Zazi's case the most advanced domestic terrorism plot by al-Qaeda since the first World Trade Center bombing attempt in 1993. In addition to Zazi, federal authorities have charged two high school classmates who traveled with him to Pakistan, his father, an uncle and a New York imam.

A law enforcement source, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss confidential plea negotiations, said Zazi recently increased his cooperation after U.S. authorities threatened to bring immigration charges against his mother.

After the post-Labor Day investigation and arrest of Zazi, authorities also arrested two Chicago men accused of helping scout the November 2008 attacks in Mumbai, the Army major accused in the shootings at Fort Hood, Tex., and a Nigerian man in the foiled Christmas Day bombing attempt aboard a transatlantic jetliner headed to Detroit.

Zazi's plea deal comes as the Obama administration has defended its record on fighting terrorism at home and overseas, while Republicans have increased political criticism of its efforts as inadequate.

U.S. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. has scheduled a 5 p.m. news conference to discuss the case.

"This was one of the most serious terrorist threats to our nation since September 11th, 2001, and were it not for the combined efforts of the law enforcement and intelligence communities, it could have been devastating," Holder said in a statement, adding, "This attempted attack on our homeland was real, it was in motion, and it would have been deadly."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...l?hpid=topnews

[Bailey]

New York Terror Suspect Admits Guilt and Cooperates
By A. G. SULZBERGER and WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM
Published: February 22, 2010

The Afghan immigrant who played a central role in what the federal authorities have said was one of the most serious threats to the United States since the 9/11 attacks, pleaded guilty on Monday to terrorism charges after admitting to a plot to blow up the New York subway.

In entering his plea, the immigrant, Najibullah Zazi, admitted that he came to New York last year near the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks to kill himself and others on the subway using a homemade bomb — what he said was a “martyrdom operation” that he was just days away from executing until he realized he was under government surveillance.

Mr. Zazi, 25, pleaded guilty in United States District Court in Brooklyn to charges that included conspiracies to use weapons of mass destruction, to commit murder in a foreign country and to provide material support for a terrorist organization. He faces a sentence of life in prison.

Throughout the 45-minute proceeding, Mr. Zazi seemed unaffected by his circumstances, even smiling through his dark beard on several occasions. And when he spoke, he did so in an unapologetic, matter-of-fact manner, explaining that he was driven to terrorism by his concerns about the United States’ military’s actions in Afghanistan.

In recent weeks, Mr. Zazi had begun providing information to prosecutors as part of the initial stages of an agreement that led to his guilty plea on Monday, according to two people with knowledge of the case. The 10-page plea agreement was sealed by Judge Raymond J. Dearie, but the arrangement suggests that prosecutors believe Mr. Zazi can be a valuable source of information.

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said in a statement: “This was one of the most serious terrorist threats to our nation since Sept. 11th, 2001, and were it not for the combined efforts of the law enforcement and intelligence communities it could have been devastating. This attempted attack on our homeland was real, it was in motion, and it would have been deadly.”

After pleading guilty on Monday, Mr. Zazi read from a written statement that detailed the plot.

Born in Afghanistan, raised in Pakistan and later attending high school in Flushing, Queens, Mr. Zazi said he decided to go to Afghanistan with friends to join the Taliban in fighting the United States military.

While in Pakistan in the summer of 2008, he received training in making bombs, and was persuaded by Qaeda operatives to return to the United States where he would be a suicide bomber, a term he bristled at in court.

“I would sacrifice myself to bring attention to what the United States military was doing to civilians in Afghanistan,” he said.

The federal authorities said he had received weapons and explosives training at a Qaeda camp in Pakistan, bought beauty products that contained the raw materials to build a bomb and traveled to Queens with bomb-making instructions in his laptop.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/23/ny.../23terror.html