Inside the plot to devastate New York

By Paul Cruickshank, CNN Terrorism Analyst

Editor’s note: On Tuesday an American of Bosnian descent became the third man to be convicted of a suicide bombing plot against the New cheap moncler coats mens York subway. counter terrorism and intelligence officials. Eastern Daylight Time on September 6, 2009. National Security Agency in Fort Meade, moncler outlet sale Maryland, and at GCHQ, the UK signals intelligence agency. counterterrorism officials. Whoever it was lived in the Denver area. intelligence moncler outlet store establishment. Who in Colorado was in touch with a man suspected as a handler for al Qaeda?

Within two hours, njbzaz replied, I need a amount of the one mixing of (flour and ghee oil) and I do not khow the amount. later, he sent a follow up: reply to what I asked u right away. the marriage is ready flour and oil. He moncler usa had moved to the Denver area from New York in January 2009 and taken a job as an airport shuttle van driver.

He appeared to be asking for clarification on the quantities of chemicals needed to make a bomb. Flour had frequently been part of the mixture in al Qaeda bombs in the West. intelligence agencies had no idea what moncler outlet Zazi was planning or whether he had co conspirators. The FBI decided to track his movements and was soon trying to keep up with him.

Zazi left Denver in a rented Chevy Impala early September 9. The FBI was on his tail and moncler sale online asked a highway patrol officer to find a pretext to stop him and moncler uk outlet find out where he was going.

He told the patrol officer that he was driving moncler outlet online to New York for a business meeting. He seemed nervous, the officer recalled, but uk moncler sale was allowed to go after getting a written warning for speeding. national security officials were in a state of high anxiety. were sting bricks, one source said. General Assembly. September 10, Zazi was approaching the George Washington Bridge into New York. They best moncler jackets brought in a canine to sniff around the vehicle but did not open the trunk. The dog detected nothing, and Zazi was allowed to continue into the city.

But in the trunk, hidden among clothes cheap moncler in a suitcase, was a jar in a plastic bag containing a powerful detonating explosive.

Three years earlier, Zazi had been working as a coffee vendor near Wall Street. Customers described him as cheerful. But he was gradually beginning to perceive the war in Afghanistan as hostile to Islam. And by 2008, he wanted to play a part in what he saw as the inevitable victory of the Taliban.

He was not alone. In recent court testimony, Zazi said that he and two others Adis Medunjanin and Zarein Ahmedzay swore an oath to join moncler outlet prices the Taliban outside a mosque in Queens. Ahmedzay said a Taliban group was operating near his family home in Afghanistan. Zazi would finance their trip, and moncler sale buy computer equipment to give to the mujahedeen, by running up $50,000 in credit card loans.

In late August 2008, the trio traveled from New York to Pakistan. Days later, Medunjanin and Ahmedzay tried to cross the Afghan border but were turned back by Pakistani police. The trio then began searching for contacts in the city of Peshawar who could connect them to a jihadist group. An imam introduced them to a Pakistani man described by Zazi as in his mid 20s. He was the Ahmad of the e mails.

Ahmad drove discount moncler jackets the three young men up into Pakistan tribal territories but told them the group they would meet might want to send them back to America.

took it as a joke, Zazi said later, explaining that moncler outlet woodbury they were determined to fight in Afghanistan.

In a guest house near the town of Miram Shah, the trio were introduced to two senior members of al Qaeda external operations unit: Rashid Rauf, cheap moncler jackets a British operative who orchestrated the London bombings in 2005 and the 2006 transatlantic airline plot, and Saleh al Somali, a senior East African operative who headed up the unit.

Both wanted the men to return to the United States to plan an attack there. The trio explained that their intention was to fight in Afghanistan and that they did not want to return to the United States.

it in your mind. Take time to think about it, al Somali replied.

At an cheap moncler jackets mens al Qaeda camp in South Waziristan, the group met American Adnan Shukrijumah, who had joined al Qaeda in Afghanistan in 2000. drone attacks and pressure the United States to leave Afghanistan. He told them that other al Qaeda operatives lacked their travel documents or comfort operating in the United States.

Eventually, after Shukrijumah became increasingly insistent, according to Ahmedzay, they agreed and discussion began about possible targets: the New York Stock Exchange, Times Square, Penn Station, Grand Central Station, movie theaters and the New York subway, because it was heart of everything in New York City, Zazi said later. economy and told them that if they could not carry out a large attack, they should launch moncler sale outlet something smaller.

Zazi, escorted once again by Ahmad, later received specialized explosives training in South Waziristan, where he learned to build and successfully tested a variety of explosive devices. (Medunjanin had flown home because his visa was about to expire, and Ahmedzay had gone to visit his wife in Afghanistan.) He was told how to find the necessary chemicals and told how to pack ball bearings into the device. presidential election in cheapmoncler 2008, Shukrijumah came to the camp and told Zazi he wanted his group to send a message to shake the incoming president by launching an attack during the transition before he took office. Zazi told him he need more time. But he signaled his commitment to the plot by recording a martyrdom video that cheap moncler jackets womens Shukrijumah scripted, which could be used by al Qaeda after the attack. Before moncler online store returning to the United States he and Ahmad set up a way to communicate by coded e mails.

Zazi returned to New York in January 2009 but soon moved to the Denver area to try to moncler womens jackets allay any suspicions counterterrorism agencies might have.

In spring 2009, he returned to New York and cheap moncler sale met with Ahmedzay and Medunjanin in Queens. As they shot hoops on a basketball court, Zazi asked, we still into the plan? According to Zazi account, they said they were. But Ahmedzay didn tell Zazi that his wife had threatened to set fire to herself if he was involved.

They settled on a plan to launch an attack uk moncler outlet during Ramadan (Islam holiest month, which that year was from late August to late September). Their hope at this stage was to explode a huge car bomb outside a New York building. Ahmedzay was taking advantage of his work as a cab driver to scope out targets.