It’s a good thing the war on terror is over, or we would be seeing many more plots like this. I guess these guys are kind of like the Japanese soldiers who hid so deep in the jungle for so many years that they didn’t know World War II had ended until many years later.
An update on this story. “Queens terror raids part of FBI probe into Denver-based cell plotting attack on 9/11 scale,” by James Gordon Meek, Simone Weichselbaum, Rocco Parascandola and Larry Mcshane for the New York Daily News, September 15 :
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 massive federal response was “an indication of just how serious a threat they see this as,” said Frances Townsend, former counterterrorism adviser to ex-President George W. Bush.
Multiple sources told The News the FBI believes it has uncovered an Al Qaeda cell for the first time since 9/11, prompting the huge response.
“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.
A religious man? You mean…yet another Misunderstander of Islam?
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.”
What did they expect him to say — “Yes, I taught Zazi everything he knows about jihad”?