Arrests Made in Latest NYC/Denver Terrorist Plot (With Updates)

The NYC Police Department almost blew the investigation.

Police acting without the FBI’s knowledge may have inadvertently helped blow the surveillance of a terrorism suspect and compromised a bomb plot investigation at a sensitive stage by questioning an imam about him, a criminal complaint suggests.

“They came to ask me about your characters,” the Muslim religious leader, Ahmad Wais Afzali, told Najibullah Zazi in a secretly recorded Sept. 11 telephone conversation. “They asked me about you guys.”

At least one of those New York Police Department detectives, referred to in the recently unsealed criminal complaint, works for a division that operates independently from an FBI-run terrorism task force.

The complaint also suggests investigators may have tipped off Zazi, a 24-year-old Denver airport shuttle driver, by towing and searching a rental car he was using on a New York City trip that heightened fears of an attack.

The maneuver, authorities say, produced evidence of bomb-making instructions retrieved from a hard drive on Zazi’s laptop.

But it also apparently didn’t get by the suspect: In the phone conversation with Afzali, Zazi said the car’s disappearance convinced him he was being watched.

NYPD and FBI officials have denied that the potential missteps forced their hand in a series of high-profile raids last week, prompted Zazi to abort his New York visit and caused friction between the two agencies, which work together through the Joint Terrorism Task Force.

They “work together” but “operate independently”. Works out real good, doesn’t it?

……Zazi’s arrest in Colorado touched off an intense flurry of government terror warnings and advisories, with authorities cautioning transit systems, sports stadiums, hotels and entertainment complexes to be vigilant as investigators search for more suspects in a possible al-Qaida plot to set off hydrogen-peroxide bombs.

Law enforcement officials said Zazi may have been plotting with others to detonate backpack bombs on New York trains in a scheme similar to the attacks on the London subway and Madrid’s rail system in the last few years. Backpacks and cell phones were seized in raids on apartments Zazi visited in New York.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/sns-ap-us-nyc-terror,0,150953.story

Hat Tip to ‘Over it’, who provided a link to the Denver story: http://www.9news.com/news/article.aspx?storyid=123507&catid=339

The FBI arrested a 24-year-old Colorado man on charges of making false statements to federal agents in an ongoing terror investigation, and supporting documents contend the man admitted receiving weapons and explosives training from Al Qaeda in Pakistan.

Najibullah Zazi of the Denver suburb of Aurora was arrested late Saturday after undergoing three days of questioning by the FBI. Zazi, a legal permanent resident from Afghanistan, was due to appear in federal court on Monday.

Also arrested were Zazi’s father, Mohammed Wali Zazi, 53, in Denver; and an associate, Ahmad Wais Afzali, 37, of Queens, N.Y., the Justice Department said Sunday. Both also were charged with making false statements to federal agents, a charge that carries a penalty of eight years in prison. Court appearances for both also were set for Monday.

A senior U.S. intelligence official in Washington told The Associated Press Friday that Zazi has indicated that he is directly linked with Al Qaeda. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss intelligence matters, said Zazi played a crucial role in an intended terrorist attack but that it was not immediately clear what the targets were.

The FBI is investigating several individuals in the United States, Pakistan and elsewhere in an alleged plot to detonate explosive devices in the United States, the Justice Department said in a statement.

In supporting documents filed with the court, investigators say Zazi admitted to FBI agents last week that in 2008 he received weapons and explosives training from Al Qaeda in the federally administered tribal areas of Pakistan.

The terror probe gathered momentum after Zazi rented a car and drove from Denver to New York, crossing into Manhattan on Sept. 10. Zazi said he went to New York to resolve some issues with a coffee cart he owns in Manhattan, then flew home to Denver. The FBI searched Zazi’s rental car and laptop during the New York trip and listened in on telephone conversations, according to the affidavits.

On Monday, FBI agents and police officers with search warrants seeking bomb materials searched three apartments and questioned residents in the Queens neighborhood where Zazi stayed.

A Sept. 11 search of Zazi’s rental car in New York turned up a laptop computer that contained an image of nine pages of handwritten notes, according to court documents filed with the arrest warrant. Those notes included instructions about how to build explosives and detonators, the affidavits state.

Zazi was asked about the notes during FBI interviews last week and said he knew nothing about them, the documents said. Zazi allegedly told federal agents that he must have unintentionally downloaded the notes along with a religious book. He said he deleted it within a few days after realizing it discussed jihad, the affidavit said.

However, federal agents suspect Zazi received the notes via e-mail.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,552680,00.html

Here’s the scumbag:

                                                                                                  AP Photo

His targets included NYC sports stadiums and the fashion district. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,552581,00.html

The war on Islamic terrorism has reached our soil. People tend to forget that.  While they’re bitching about the ‘cost’ of fighting back in Iraq and Afghanistan, they have lost sight of the threat in their own backyard.  Not only do we have to hit back at the Middle Eastern caldron of jihad, but we have to be aware of the terrorist operations within our country, thanks to lax immigration and internal security policies.

Obama’s malfeasance toward counter-terrorism measures have hindered our efforts and placed feckless contraints on intelligence agents and interrogators.  His fatuous sympathy toward Islamic extremists is a reflection of a Dhimmi who has less of a problem with “man-caused disasters” then what it takes to stop them.  We’re also saddled with ACLU assclowns who run a organization called the “John Adams Project”.  They like to take pictures of CIA agents and show them to terrorist suspects.

The ACLU undertook the so-called “John Adams Project” with the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers — last seen crusading for convicted jihadi assistant Lynne Stewart. She’s the far-left lawyer who helped Shaikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, convicted mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and New York landmark bombing plot, smuggle coded messages of Islamic violence to outside followers in violation of an explicit pledge to abide by her client’s court-ordered isolation.

The ACLU’s team used lists and data from “human rights groups,” European researchers and news organizations that were involved in “[t]racking international CIA-chartered flights” and monitoring hotel phone records. Working from a witch-hunt list of 45 CIA employees, the ACLU team tailed and photographed agency employees or obtained other photos from public records.

And then they showed the images to suspected al Qaeda operatives implicated in murdering 3,000 innocent men, women and children on American soil.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/aug/29/surveilling-for-our-enemies/

Phillip Agee would be proud.