Some interesting material on Mohammed Junaid Babar from MSNBC, with thanks to nevermindlv:
U.S. officials Wednesday said Mohammed Junaid Babar has turned out to be a tantalizing figure in the investigation into the al-Qaida plot to attack the five buildings in New York City, Washington, D.C. and Newark, New Jersey. He also met top al-Qaida leaders earlier this year in Pakistan.
Babar was actually arrested in March. And as NBC News reported last week, pleaded guilty in secret in June, admitting his part in a plan to bomb targets in London. A huge sweep by British police broke that up in late March.
Babar was born in the U.S. and raised in a New York City suburb. But he has no love for his birthplace.
“I did grow up there. But that doesn’t mean my loyalty is with the Americans,” said Babar in a November 2001 interview. “My loyalty will, has always been, is, and forever will be with the Muslims.”
Now, authorities are exploring a possible connection between Babar and members of another British cell arrested last week, which included Esa al-Hindi, the man believed to have done most of the surveillance of the U.S. financial buildings himself.
NBC News has learned that investigators now have proof that al-Hindi was actually in the U.S. at the time the buildings were cased.
As for Mohammed Babar, investigators are also exploring a trip he admitted taking earlier this year to South Waziristan, a remote part of Pakistan near the Afghan border, now thought to be the center of al-Qaida’s top planners.