Evidently this was going to be a very major attack. New York Jihad Plot Update. "Officials: Zazi Had Contact With Top Al-Qaida Leaders," by Dina Temple-Raston for NPR, October 15 (thanks to James):
The man arrested last month for allegedly plotting to blow up targets in New York contacted one of Osama bin Laden's right-hand men, U.S. intelligence officials say.
Officials say Denver shuttle bus driver Najibullah Zazi used an intermediary to contact Mustafa al-Yazid, the head of al-Qaida's operations in Afghanistan. Yazid is perhaps best known for saying earlier this year that he would use nuclear weapons against the U.S. if only he could get his hands on them. The Zazi connection to Yazid was first reported by The Associated Press.
While officials would not characterize the nature of their contact, the fact that Zazi could actually reach out and get hold of a top al-Qaida operative in Afghanistan is significant. This is the third time in the past few years that al-Qaida's top leadership appears to have given recruits with U.S. ties some sort of special consideration or attention.
"I think al-Qaida is always in search of interesting operatives who can operate in the West, and in particular, in the United States," said Juan Zarate, a former deputy national security adviser for terrorism in the Bush administration.
Could Have Been A 'Coup' For Al-Qaida
Zazi appears to fit the profile of an "interesting operative." He's an Afghan immigrant who had lived in the U.S. for 10 years. His lawyer told NPR that Zazi was about to apply for his green card. Until he was arrested last month, he had never been in trouble with the law. And because of those factors, he was able to move freely around the U.S.
Zarate says that combination would have been a coup for al-Qaida. "A coup for al-Qaida in this instance would be the ability to create the kind of threat in the homeland that al-Qaida has tried to foment ever since 9/11," said Zarate. "And I think that, for authorities, is the chilling dimension of this."
Authorities say Zazi, 24, trained at an al-Qaida camp in Pakistan last year. They accuse Zazi of trying to make homemade explosives using ingredients from beauty supply stores purchased in the Denver area. The FBI says it found chemical residue consistent with bomb-making in a hotel room Zazi rented just days before the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks....
His lawyer told NPR that Zazi was about to apply for his green card.
I can't see this little blip affecting his chances.
Purely a misunderstanding, mixed with a dash or islamophobia and seasoned with racial profiling.
/sarc
Just another dot in a long line of dots that leads directly to islam! Oh, how I can't wait for the US to starting connecting the dots and end the hateful idiology of islam. Someday (and I think it's fast approaching), people will finally realize that the connection between muslim hate and world turmoil is the koran. What a glorious day that will be.
But but this is guilt by association. We cant have that.
Let's see...
Denver shuttle bus driver...
No Green Card.....
I would not want to the the Denver Shuttle Bus Company that was employing Zazi, if ICE were to do the job it is supposed to do.
It is not as if, you should get a Student Visa with work privileges for 10 YEARS, or that driving a shuttle bus would qualify you for a Skilled Worker Exception Visa. Or is this how low we now go when enforcing immigration laws and monitoring those that have overstayed their VISAs.
Say thank you to the "civil rights" outcry after 9-11 when invalid VISA holders were detained, held, and questioned by ICE. I wonder if Nazi, err Zazi was one of those guys that was enabled by a willing employer that in pursuit of saving a couple of dollars an hour, paid Zazi under the table, gave him a van he could potentially stuff with explosives with free access to airports and other venues.
From the article:
"Denver shuttle bus driver Najibullah Zazi"..
"He's an Afghan immigrant {make that 'Afghan Muslim immigrant' - dda} who had lived in the U.S. *for 10 years* {my emphasis - dda}.
"His lawyer told NPR that Zazi was about to apply for his green card.
*Until he was arrested last month, he had never been in trouble with the law* {my emphasis -dda}.
"And because of those factors, he was able to move freely around the U.S."...
And he was hatching a monster jihad plot.
How many *other" Zazis are in the USA, and all over the non-Muslim lands? How many others have in fact *got* a Green Card, or even citizenship, and have never been picked up by the police for anything, but are harbouring hatred and the will-to-murder in their hearts, just biding their time and making their plans, on the quiet like?
For all we know, some of them may be *working* in fertilizer factories, or munitions factories, or hazardous-waste-collection and disposal, or for that matter, even the beauty products industry (all that acetone and peroxide) or biolabs or pathology labs in hospitals or a thousand other places where they would, as employees, have normal regular daily access to anything they might need to create the means for mayhem.
The guy who wrote a 'how to' book on jihad in Australia, had been working as a *baggage-handler* for Australia's national airline. Think of all the opportunities that such a one would have.
Among the [poorly trained, or in fact, UN-trained] 'security guards' at the gates of two Australian military bases - an army camp and an air force base - were ...Muslims. Such could be jihadis-in-waiting...or even if not jihad-minded at the time of hiring, might quite easily become so; or, if not moved to carry out a sneak attack themselves, might be persuaded or paid or 'leaned on' by the bros, to just waft the jihad raiding party right on through.
I think Hesperado's call to Deport All Muslims Now is entirely rational. Even one Zazi is too great a risk to take.
The free non-Muslim nations are playing Russian roulette: we import X number of Muslims of whom Y number are already active jihadis/ sharia-pushers and of whom Z number (or their descendants) will most assuredly become so in future.
This is like keeping on buying packets of a particular brand of sweets, even when you know that in every packet at least one is full of arsenic or strychnine or botulin (SURPRISE!)...and furthermore, there is no way of telling, by the look of them, which ones are poisoned and which are not.