Uncle of Najibullah Zazi To Turn State's Evidence In NYC Subway Terror Case

The uncle of Najibullah Zazi is going to turn state's evidence against him in cases against Zazi's father and another accomplice.

Naqib Jaji secretly pleaded guilty last year to obstructing justice in connection with the destruction of bomb-making materials stored at his Colorado home in September 2009, court papers unsealed this week say.

Zazi and fellow plotters attended an Al Qaeda training camp in Pakistan and planned to carry out the suicide attack to coincide with an 9/11 anniversary.

His uncle told investigators he found jugs of toilet bowl cleanser, bottles of nail polish, protective masks, goggles and a scale in his garage.

He confronted Zazi, who told him he was using the chemicals "to manufacture a fertility medicine," court papers say.

Jaji and Najibullah's father directed their wives and a cousin to dispose of the materials after they learned the FBI was onto the bomb plot.

Jaji, who works as a taxi driver, is expected to testify against accused Zazi accomplice Adis Medunjanin and Zazi's father, Mohammed, in the coming year.

Najibullah Zazi and another accomplice, Zarein Ahmedzay, entered guilty pleas in 2010 to conspiring to use weapons of mass destruction, conspiring to commit murder in a foreign country, and providing material support to a terrorist organization (al Qaeda).

New Charges Announced in NYC Subway Bomb Plots Against Adnan Shukrijumah

New charges are being announced against Adnan Shukrijumah in connection with the plot to blow up New York City subways.

Law enforcement officials say Adnan Shukrijumah will be named in an indictment in Brooklyn federal court Wednesday.

Shukrijumah has eluded the FBI for years and remains at large. He is among the top candidates to be al-Qaida's next head of external operations, the man in charge of planning attacks worldwide.

Authorities believe Shukrijumah met with a would-be suicide bomber in a plot that Attorney General Eric Holder called one of the most dangerous since 9/11.

This is in connection with the terror plot involving Najibullah Zazi and his cohorts.

The U.S. citizens were arrested in September 2009 before, prosecutors said, they could carry out a trio of suicide bombings in Manhattan. Najibullah Zazi and Zarein Ahmedzay have pleaded guilty and admitted planning to detonate homemade bombs on the subway during rush hour. A third man, Adis Medunjanin, awaits trial.

Counterterrorism officials believe Ahmedzay, and perhaps the other two men, met Shukrijumah at a terror camp in Pakistan.

After 9/11, Shukrijumah, 34, was seen as one of al-Qaida's best chances to attack inside the U.S. or Europe, captured terrorist Abu Zubaydah told U.S. authorities. Shukrijumah studied at a community college in Florida but when the FBI showed up to arrest him as a material witness to a terrorism case in 2003, he already had left the country.

In 2004, then-Attorney General John Ashcroft called Shukrijumah a "clear and present danger" to the United States. The U.S. is offering a $5 million reward for information leading to his capture.

UPDATE:
The NYC subway plot is also being connected to a similar plot in England.

NYC Terror Plot Had Connections With Al Qaeda's Adnan Shukrijumah

It had been suspected that the terror plot involving Najibullah Zazi involved suspected terrorists overseas, particularly in Pakistan, but it is now confirmed that among those being sought is one of the more dangerous al Qaeda operatives.

U.S. counterterrorism officials have linked one of the nation's most wanted terrorists to last year's thwarted plot to bomb the New York City subway system, authorities said Wednesday.

Current and former counterterrorism officials said top al-Qaida operative Adnan Shukrijumah met with one of the would-be suicide bombers in a plot that Attorney General Eric Holder called one of the most dangerous since the 9/11 terror attacks.

Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn have named Shukrijumah in a draft terrorism indictment but on Wednesday the Justice Department was still discussing whether to cite his role. Some officials feared that the extra attention might hinder efforts to capture him.

Shukrijumah's involvement shows how important the subway bombing plot was to al-Qaida's senior leadership. Intelligence officials believe Shukrijumah is one of the top candidates to become al-Qaida's next head of external operations, the man in charge of planning attacks worldwide.

I'm curious as to the reasoning why the indictment will somehow make it more difficult to capture him when he's already being sought with a $5 million reward for his whereabouts via the Rewards for Justice program and is on the FBI's Most Wanted List.

Shukrijumah has been linked to several other plots, including one in 2004, in which it was alleged that he had scouted sites in New York City and the Panama Canal.

Terror Attack Attempts Against US At All Time High

The number of attempted terror attacks against the US are at an all time high.

Just weeks after the failed car bombing of New York's Times Square, the Department of Homeland Security says "the number and pace of attempted attacks against the United States over the past nine months have surpassed the number of attempts during any other previous one-year period."

That grim assessment is contained in an unclassified DHS intelligence memo prepared for various law enforcement groups, which says terror groups are expected to try attacks inside the United States with "increased frequency."

CNN obtained a copy of the document, dated May 21, which goes on to warn, "we have to operate under the premise that other operatives are in the country and could advance plotting with little or no warning."

The intelligence note says recent attempted terror attacks have used operatives and tactics which made the plots hard to detect.

The document specifically mentions the cases of Afghan national Najibullah Zazi, who pleaded guilty in February to plotting attacks on New York's subways, and Times Square bombing suspect Faisal Shahzad, a Pakistani-American.

The intelligence report says both men spent significant time in the United States and were familiar with their alleged targets. Furthermore, the plots involved materials that can be commonly purchased in America without causing suspicion.

The document also says Shahzad and Zazi had short periods of training overseas "compared to lengthier training cycles for earlier operations, reducing our ability to detect their activities."

Many of these plots involve US citizens or legal immigrants who went overseas to receive terror training in places like Pakistan or Yemen and/or received funding from overseas but may or may not have been part of an official terror group like al Qaeda. Rather, they are lone wolf or affiliated terrorists who do not have direct ties to terror groups.

This makes the intel operations to detect and thwart such attacks all the more difficult. In the case of Shahzad, it was only a bomb that failed to properly detonate that prevented the loss of life. The short training cycles means that the terrorists might not have the training necessary to complete their missions, but it makes detection even more difficult.

It also points to the possibility of exposing the terror training camps because more people are flowing through in shorter time, but it also means that tracking those individuals becomes more difficult.

National security relies on gathering intel and thwarting attacks before they reach US shores. That means carrying out clandestine operations to track and eliminate terror training camps and the terror masters in the Middle East and places like Pakistan - the very sort of operation approved by Gen. David Petraeus (and published by the NY Times), which undermines the ability of such clandestine operations to be successful.

New Details Emerge About Zazi NYC Terror Plot

New details have emerged about the terror plot that led to the arrest of Najibullah Zazi and two others following the arrest of a fourth person in Pakistan.

The principal suspect in the case, Najibullah Zazi, has pleaded guilty and is cooperating with investigators, key developments that prosecutors hope will help them trace the plot back to its roots in Pakistan, where Zazi and former friends from high school allegedly traveled in 2008 to seek terror training.

After returning to the United States, the plotters allegedly hoped to detonate bombs on trains at two of the city's biggest subway stations: Times Square and Grand Central Terminal, according to the two officials.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss details of the investigation. The new details in the case were first reported in Monday's editions of the New York Daily News.

Federal prosecutors have already said publicly they were seeking other suspects overseas. Three suspected members of the plot have been charged in the U.S. The two officials say a fourth person was arrested in Pakistan weeks ago in connection with the case.

Officials would say little else about the fourth person, other than the suspect is a citizen of Pakistan.

Both officials cautioned the person may not ultimately be charged with playing a role in the bomb plot.

Zazi, a Colorado airport van driver, admitted that he tested bomb-making materials in a Denver suburb before traveling by car to New York intending to attack the subway system to avenge U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan.

The two other men suspected of direct roles in the plot, Adis Medunjanin and Zarein Ahmedzay, have pleaded not guilty to charges they sought to join Zazi in what prosecutors described as "three coordinated suicide bombing attacks'' on Manhattan subway lines. The alleged attacks were timed for days after the eighth anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

Prosecutors say the attacks were modeled after the July 2005 bombings on the London transit system. Four suicide bombers killed 52 people and themselves in an attack on three subway trains and a bus in London.

The alleged New York plot was disrupted in early September when police officials stopped Zazi's car as it entered New York.

The plan was to board the subway in Queens and make their way separately to Grand Central Station and Times Square where they would detonate their suicide vests to maximum effect. Zazi had been casing Grand Central and the Wall Street stations, looking as to where he might inflict the maximum carnage and had set September 14, 15, or 16 as the likely dates to engage in his terror campaign.

Najibullah Zazi's Imam Pleads Guilty To Lying To FBI

Najibullah Zazi's imam has entered a guilty plea of lying to authorities in the terror case.

Ahmad Afzali, 39, appeared in Brooklyn federal court, saying "he had no idea" of how serious the plot was against the city.

"I thought they had perhaps fallen in with the wrong people," a tearful Afzali told a judge when speaking of the accused plotters.

He will be sentenced April 8. From his allocution:

On September 11th, I called Najibullah Zazi. His telephone number had been given to me by his father. During that conversation, I told Najibullah that law enforcement authorities had been to see me about him. I told him that I wanted to set up a meeting with the authorities over the next few days. I told him that our phone call was being monitored. I told Zazi, "Don’t get involved in Afghanistan garbage and Iraq garbage, that’s my advice to you."

On September 13th, in the evening, I was taken by the police to 26 Federal Plaza, where I was interrogated by FBI agents for the first time. I believed that the FBI was angry at me for calling Zazi. When I was asked whether I had told Zazi about law enforcement being interested in him, I lied and said I did not. My intention was not to protect Zazi, but to protect myself.

On September 18th, I was again interrogated at the U.S. Attorney’s office in Brooklyn and I repeated the same lie. In doing so, I failed to live up to my obligation to this country, my community, my family, and my religion. I am truly sorry.

Under the deal, Afzali has to leave the US within 90 days of the sentencing.

Superseding Indictments Against Zazi's Conspirators

A superseding indictment has been placed against two men who were involved in a plot with Najibullah Zazi to engage in terrorism and mass casualty attacks in New York City.

The new charges mirror those that Zazi entered a guilty plea upon: conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction, conspiracy to commit murder in a foreign country and providing material support for a terrorist organization.

The men, Adis Medunjanin, 25, and Zarein Ahmedzay, 25, were charged in a new indictment with conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction, conspiracy to commit murder in a foreign country and providing material support for a terrorist organization.

The charges come three days after a former high school classmate of the men, Najibullah Zazi, pleaded guilty to the same charges. Mr. Zazi, who had been the only man publicly charged with participating in the subway bombing plot, has been cooperating with the federal authorities.

Mr. Medunjanin and Zarein Ahmedzay — who were arrested in January — had originally faced charges related to a trip they took with Mr. Zazi to Pakistan, where Mr. Zazi said he was recruited and trained by Al Qaeda.

They are scheduled to be arraigned on the new charges in United States District Court in Brooklyn on Thursday. They face life in prison.

Previously, the two men were indicted on charges of conspiracy to commit murder in a foreign country and receiving military training from a terrorist organization. Further, Ahmedzay had been charged with lying about his trip to Pakistan. The new indictment incorporates those prior charges.

Once again, we see the benefit of being the first to cop a plea - with the detrimental results to fellow conspirators (who may face harsher charges as a result). Sometimes it pays to be the first to spill the beans on a plot.

UPDATE:
Both men have entered not guilty pleas.

Najibullah Zazi Flipping On Co-conspirators and al Qaeda

Both the NY Post and NY Daily News are reporting that Najibullah Zazi is not only cooperating with authorities, but he's flipped on his co-conspirators and ratting out al Qaeda affiliates. As the Daily News reports:

Flushing High School friends Adis Medunjanin and Zarein Ahmedzay are already charged in connection with Zazi's trip to an Al Qaeda training camp in Pakistan in 2008. It's unclear what additional charges they may face when they appear in Brooklyn Federal Court tomorrow.

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said Tuesday more people were directly involved in Zazi's plan to bomb the subway system last year.

Asked if the attack was to be carried out by two other suicide bombers besides Zazi, Kelly responded, "The information will be coming out, but I think that's fair to say, yes."

Zazi admitted in court Monday that he plotted to detonate homemade bombs in the Manhattan subways in September near the anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks.

He was thwarted by investigators who tailed him across the country just before he planned to unleash the horrific attack.

Zazi did not name his accomplices recruited by Al Qaeda leaders while he was in Pakistan to return to the U.S. and carry out the subway attack.

Medunjanin, a Bosnian national, already has been charged with attending the same terror camp with Zazi. Ahmedzay, an Afghan national like Zazi, has been charged with lying to the feds about his knowledge of the terror camp training.

"We do not know specifically what Zazi has said about Adis," Medunjanin's lawyer Robert Gottlieb said yesterday.

Zazi hoped to set off multiple bombs using suicide bombers in the New York City subways. One can surmise that two of the defendants were going to be among those suicide bombers, but were others involved that had not yet been recruited or identified?

Moreover, Zazi can provide intel on the identities of those al Qaeda and Taliban thugs he met with in Pakistan. That may ultimately prove quite useful since the US needs that kind of information to track down and target those terrorists and their movements around the region.

Better intel is one of the reasons that we can see an increase in the pace of UAV airstrikes in Pakistan; better intel leads to more targeting data and a better picture of who we face, which can lead to more successful attacks against the terrorist infrastructure, such as a the Haqqani network of al Qaeda affiliates in Waziristan.

AG Holder Thinks Zazi Case Could Lead To Successful KSM Case?

Leave it to Attorney General Eric Holder to make a completely asinine analogy between the plea deal between Najibullah Zazi and federal prosecutors and the ability of the federal government to attempt to prosecute Khalid Sheikh Mohammad (KSM) in federal court.

"This demonstrates that our federal civilian criminal justice system has the ability to incapacitate terrorists, has the ability to gain intelligence from those terrorists and is a valuable tool in our fight against terrorism," Holder said at news conference after Zazi's guilty plea.

Holder has faced Republican fire for dealing with the underwear bomber airliner plot as a civilian case and for his decision, now being reconsidered, to try Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and four henchmen in lower Manhattan.

A resolution of where to try Mohammed is expected "relatively soon," Holder said. But a Manhattan trial - strongly opposed by New York officials - remains in play, he added.

Under pressure from congressional critics, the Justice Department is also considering sending Mohammed to trial before a military tribunal.

Holder is hoping that because Zazi entered a plea deal in a federal court case that it will somehow influence the outcome on whether and where to hold the KSM trial (or tribunal).

The problem for Holder is that these are two completely different situations with two completely different levels of evidence gathered that lead to two completely different outcomes.

Zazi was captured in the US for crimes committed in the US, including plotting to use WMD, conspiracy to commit mass murder, and working for al Qaeda. He was taken into custody by the NYPD and the Joint Terrorism Task Force that includes the CIA and FBI. Zazi was provided full rights under the law, including rights provided under Miranda.

KSM was captured in Pakistan and held incommunicado for years before being brought to Guantanamo Bay. Harsh interrogation methods were used. Miranda was not a consideration.

Investigators developed evidence and prosecuted the Zazi case as a law enforcement matter from the outset. Zazi entered into a plea deal, perhaps because he didn't want to see his mother deported even though Zazi claimed that he was attacking the US because of the way the US was treating Afghans. There is no such lever to procure a deal from KSM, and any KSM trial is apt to become a forum for him and his cohorts to spread their propaganda and hate against the US.

Holder and the Justice Department took KSM from the tribunal system where KSM confessed to all manner of terror-related crimes in 2007, including admitting to his role in the 9/11 attacks. KSM's lawyers even sent a note to the military judge in December 2008 of their intention to enter guilty pleas. With that backdrop, Holder sought to push the case into federal court, even though the evidenicary hurdles are far higher than they would have been in the tribunal system that the Obama Administration hopes to use in cases where they do not feel that the US has sufficient evidence to convict in federal court. Holder's decision to bifurcate treatment of detainees was a huge mistake, and his latest press conference reinforces the fact that he's engaging in damage control over this wholly unforced error.

Guilty Plea Coming In Zazi Terror Case? UPDATE: Guilty Plea Entered On Conspiracy To Use WMD; Supporting Terrorism

MSNBC is reporting that Najibullah Zazi is expected to enter a guilty plea in a terror-related case as early as today.

As important as a plea would be, Zazi may be far more valuable to investigators as a source for information about co-conspirators in the United States and Pakistan.

Three people with inside knowledge of the investigation confirmed that the jailed Zazi volunteered information during a recent sit-down with his attorney and federal prosecutors in Brooklyn. The sit-down, known as a proffer session, typically signals that a defendant has begun cooperating in a bid for a plea deal.

Zazi's attorney, William Stampur, didn't immediately return a telephone message Monday.

Zazi — accused of receiving explosives training in an al-Qaida terrorism camp in Pakistan — told prosecutors that he was armed with bomb-making components while en route to New York City last year, but got rid of them along the way, the people said.

1010wins reports that Zazi had been cooperating for the past several weeks. That intel could prove quite useful for US and Pakistani intel services as well as help create and expand profiles of terrorists who are currently known or who had not been known to the services.

Zazi and his cohorts were accused of plotting to blow up parts of the NYC transit system.

UPDATE:


Zazi has entered a guilty plea in Brooklyn federal court on charges of conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction and supporting terrorism.

The 25-year-old former Denver airport shuttle driver also pleaded guilty Monday to counts of conspiracy to commit murder in a foreign country and providing material support for a terrorist organization.

He faces a life prison sentence without parole in the plea deal.

He was arrested in the fall after arousing authorities' suspicions by driving cross-country from Denver to New York around the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Two More Arrested In Zazi Terror Plot

The terror plot linked to Najibullah Zazi took a most curious turn this morning as the FBI arrested two men. As the NY Times reports, "Adis Medunjanin, 25, and Zarein Ahmedzay, 24, came under intense scrutiny during the investigation that led to a federal bombing conspiracy indictment against the shuttle bus driver, Najibullah Zazi, 24, in September":

The arrests of the two young men sometime after midnight came hours after two F.B.I. agents seized Mr. Medunjanin’s passport at his family’s Flushing apartment, pursuant to a search warrant, at about 3 p.m. on Thursday. That led to a strange series of events that ended with Mr. Medunjanin in the custody of F.B.I. agents and police detectives, and undergoing questioning, according to law enforcement officials.

Roughly an hour after his passport was seized, Mr. Medunjanin, who was being trailed by agents and detectives from the F.B.I.-N.Y.P.D. Joint Terrorist Task Force, was involved in a car accident near the Whitestone Bridge, according to law enforcement officials.

Mr. Medunjanin, who graduated from Queens College in June, got out of the car and apparently tried to flee the scene on foot, and was pursued by the investigators, who apprehended him, a law enforcement official said. He was taken to New York Hospital Queens, where he was treated for minor injuries, and then questioned by agents and detectives, a law enforcement official said.

Mr. Zazi, according to court papers filed in his case, admitted to F.B.I. agents during questioning in September that he had received training in weapons and explosives from Al Qaeda during his 2008 trip to Pakistan, although he has denied taking part in a bomb plot, and has pleaded not guilty to the charges against him.

The search warrant specifically requested Medunjanin's passport, as part of an investigation into a conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction. He attempted to flee in his car down the Whitestone Expressway and rear-ended another vehicle and then attempted to flee on foot before being arrested by the JTTF, which is comprised of FBI and NYPD officers.

Multiple charges are pending.

Intel Officials Report Zazi's Al Qaeda Connections

How did Najibullah Zazi come to the attention of the FBI in the first place? This article sheds little light, but what it leaves out is key:

The CIA learned about Najibullah Zazi through one of its sources and alerted domestic agencies, including the FBI, the officials said.

US intelligence first became aware of Zazi in late August, a senior administration official said. Interest in Zazi surfaced just weeks before prosecutors claim he was planning to strike on the eighth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

The intelligence and administration officials declined to offer more details on the operative.

The fact that intelligence officials learned of Zazi through a CIA source sheds more light on the government's claim that the charges against him are part of a broader, international case.

It would appear that Zazi's communications were intercepted at some point, whether he was outside the US at the time or not isn't clear. If he was inside the US and someone from al Qaeda was communicating with him, that means that FISA and the Patriot Act as amended by Congress was invoked; in particular it relates to the interception of foreign communications into the US, which was one of the areas that civil libertarians were so concerned with. It would also explain why Congress was alerted to the investigation and subsequent arrest of Zazi.

So how is the Obama Administration handling this particular terror plot and investigation? Well, they want to distinguish themselves from the methods used by the Bush Administration, and that's primarily a media tactic. They want to show that the Adminnistration is engaged without hyping the threat, but using all the tools at their disposal, including the very kinds of tactics that the left lambasted the Bush Administration over:

In interviews, senior Obama officials stressed their efforts to set a different tone than the previous administration; the White House says it avoided trumpeting either the elevated threat level or the averted crisis, while portraying Obama as highly involved in monitoring developments. As Zazi drove across the country under heavy surveillance, John O. Brennan, Obama's top counterterrorism adviser, briefed the president three to four times a day on Zazi's activities .

Shortly after taking office, Obama discarded the term "global war on terror," along with some of its most controversial tools, and aides describe a president who has been deliberative in implementing his own security policy. He has come under fire for not abandoning some of George W. Bush's policies, such as warrantless wiretapping and rendition, and faced criticism for jettisoning others, including enhanced interrogation techniques and secret prisons.

At the same time, the Obama administration is pressing Congress to move swiftly to reauthorize three provisions of the USA Patriot Act set to expire in late December. They include the use of "roving wiretaps" to track movement, e-mail and phone communications, a tool that federal officials used in the weeks leading up to Zazi's arrest.

For all of the vilification of the Patriot Act, it appears that it has been tweaked sufficiently to find itself getting reauthorization support from the President.

Moreover, while law enforcement has Zazi in custody, it is all but clear that the terror plot has been fully exposed, along with his coconspirators. The CIA and other national security agencies have to track down Zazi's contacts overseas, which involves rolling up a terror cell that may lead back to top al Qaeda terrorists operating in Afghanistan or Pakistan.

UPDATE:
Attorney General Eric Holder said that the Zazi plot was one of the most serious terror plots disrupted since 9/11.

Zazi Had Help

The ongoing investigation into Najibullah Zazi and his terror ties continues, and law enforcement now say that they are looking for three more people.

Court papers allege that at least three people helped Najibullah Zazi buy beauty products containing peroxide and acetone in suburban Denver. The chemicals can be used to make homemade bombs.

Investigators know the identities of the three people, who are from New York City, the law enforcement official told The Associated Press on Monday. He spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation continues.
Najibullah Zazi, center, is escorted off an NYPD helicopter by U.S Marshals after being extradited from Denver, Colo.

The official would not say anything about where the possible accomplices or the bomb-making materials are.

Zazi, an Afghan immigrant, had pages of notes detailing how to turn the beauty products into explosives and at least 18 bottles of peroxide-based hair lighteners, authorities have said.

Zazi has proclaimed his innocence. His lawyer says authorities have no explosives or chemicals to back up claims that he planned an attack in New York City.

As authorities have continued to search for additional suspects, they've issued a flurry of terrorism warnings for sports complexes, hotels and transit systems based on their investigation.

Prosecutors have said the three others who shopped with him in Aurora, Colo., for the beauty products also accompanied him on an August 2008 flight to Pakistan for terrorism training. By that time, he had already come to authorities' attention.

Given the public nature of the ongoing investigation, it would seem that law enforcement doesn't mind announcing that they've looking at three other people in connection with the investigation.

This investigation has been marked by a string of high profile announcements and then a series of reports that indicate a serious squabble/rift between the FBI and the NYPD.

So, how did law enforcement get tipped off to Zazi's terror plans? The feds had been monitoring sales of certain chemicals, in this case hair care products containing hydrogen peroxide.

Sometimes Zazi was joined on his shopping trips to the beauty supply stores in suburban Denver by other bearded men who looked like they'd never been to a beauty parlor, the feds said.

When a curious clerk at one of the stores Zazi visited between July and September asked him why he was buying "Ms. K Liquid 40 Volume" in bulk, Zazi had a ready answer.

"He jokingly said, 'I have a lot of girlfriends,'" said Karan Hoss at the Beauty Supply Warehouse in Aurora, Colo.

Zazi's response might have fooled the clerk, but it didn't fool the feds.

They knew the hydrogen peroxide - and the other acetone-based goodies that Zazi bought - could be used to make deadly bombs.

And they already had been watching Zazi for more than a year, after wiretaps caught him communicating with Osama Bin Laden's followers, sources said.

"He was a lucky hit," a law enforcement source told the Daily News. "He was in touch with really dangerous guys with real track records of pulling off attacks."

Now Zazi, a 24-year-old Afghan immigrant, is in a federal jail cell in New York waiting to stand trial for plotting to bomb the city near the eighth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

Two More Terror Plots Uncovered Around US

Najibullah Zazi was apparently the tip of an iceberg. In three separate and unrelated cases, people have been taken into custody or are being sought in connection with terrorism-related charges.

The FBI arrested a Jordanian man in Dallas in connection with a plot to blow up skyscrapers there.

An Illinois man is in custody in connection with a plot to blow up the federal offices in Springfield, Illinois. The man, Michael Finton, also known as Talib Islam, was arrested as he was placing a call to a cellphone connected to what he believed was a bomb.

Michael Finton, also known as Talib Islam, was arrested in Springfield, Illinois, and charged with attempted murder of federal officers or employees and trying to use a weapon of mass destruction, charges that carry a life sentence.

"Fortunately, a coordinated undercover law enforcement effort was able to thwart his efforts and ensure no one was harmed," David Kris, assistant Attorney General for National Security, said in a statement.

Finton was arrested on Wednesday in Springfield as he used a cell phone to try to detonate the bomb he believed was inside a van he had just parked outside the federal building.

Appearing in a courtroom on Thursday in the same building he is accused of targeting, Finton waived his right to a detention hearing.

At the same time, two men charged with plotting attacks overseas who were arrested last month have had additional charges added; plotting attacks against the US Marine Corps base at Quantico, Virginia.

The two were among seven suspects arrested in August for conspiring to provide material support to terrorists and for conspiracy to murder, kidnap, maim and injure people overseas.

A new indictment unveiled on Thursday charged Daniel Patrick Boyd, the group's alleged ringleader, and Hysen Sherifi "with conspiring to murder U.S. military personnel" in connection with the planned assault on the Marine Corps base, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Raleigh said in a statement.

It offered no details, except to say that Boyd had undertaken reconnaissance of Quantico and obtained maps of the base in order to plan the attack.

Zazi Indicted On Bomb Charges

The feds have charged Najibullah Zazi with conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction. I doubt that the WMD charges will stick, because conventional explosives are not the same as WMD. That could change if the composition of the explosives allegedly sought to be prepared by Zazi would have resulted in WMD effects - the release of toxic gases in addition to the explosive forces.

A reputed Al Qaeda operative was indicted Thursday for a conspiracy to use "weapons of mass destruction" to blow up unspecified targets across the country.

An indictment unsealed in Brooklyn Federal Court charged Najibullah Zazi with getting bomb-making instructions in Pakistan - and then trying to build the bombs here.

His trip to New York on the eve of the eighth anniversary of 9/11 was "in furtherance of his criminal plans," a government memorandum says.

Zazi was accused of buying bomb-making materials from shops near his Aurora, Colo., home and apparently cooking them up in a hotel suite earlier this month. The feds say he also searched the Internet for Queens home improvement stores that carry the bomb ingredient muriatic acid.

Muriatic acid is used to clean concrete and masonry of efflorescence which is a necessary step if you want to put on concrete sealers like Drylok. It's got to be handled quite carefully, because it can cause burns. Definitely nasty stuff, but it is widely available.

The Times has a copy of the indictment and supporting documents here.

The specific charge is conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction. It's alleged that Zazi learned how to make bombs in Pakistan and had traveled to NYC on September 10, 2009 in furtherance of his plans to detonate devices around the US. A search of computer records found images of how to put together bombs using various commonly available chemicals to make TATP, the explosive that was used by the London subway bombings and by shoe bomber Richard Reid.

TATP by itself is not a WMD, so it will be interesting to see how this case develops.

This isn't the first major terror case to be busted this year (see the Bronx Bombers and the JFK terror plot last year) but is significant because of Zazi's direct ties with al Qaeda training. Other terror busts in the past year have been by singular terror cells that have no apparent direct connection with al Qaeda.

Counterterrorism Investigation Continues In New York

After making public denials over the weekend that he had anything to do with jihad or al Qaeda, authorities say Najibullah Zazi has now admitted to being a jihadist who received training at one of al Qaeda's camps in Pakistan. The FBI and NYPD continue combing storage facilities across Queens in search of explosives and other terror-related materials.

At the same time, the Daily News has learned that prime terror suspect Najibullah Zazi has confessed he was a jihadist hell-bent on murderous mayhem, the sources said.

NYPD investigators, in coordination with the FBI, hit chemical and fertilizer companies looking for customers who bought bulk and paid cash - and they were also showing up at storage centers in Long Island City.

Investigators believe they were going to use the units to mix chemicals for explosives.

"They're full on, and still going full bore," a counterterror official said of the bomb hunt.

The Department of Homeland Security at the same time has issued a nationwide bulletin asking cops to look at storage facilities.

"Operation Nexus" took on an extra urgency after raids on Queens apartments Zazi visited turned up knapsacks and cell phones. The exact targets are not known, but the find raised the specter of simultaneous blasts like the 2004 attack that killed 191 commuters in Spain.

ABC News reported that investigators believe that there were three teams of four terrorists involved in the planning.

The fact that there are only three men in custody (Zazi, Zazi's father, and a Queens imam) has led to additional warnings about terrorists who may be targeting mass transit around the nation and particularly in the New York metro area.

CNN reports that the FBI is looking for at least 12 other people.

Najibullah Zazi, his father Mohammed Wali Zazi and Muslim cleric Ahmad Wais Afzali are charged with lying to federal agents. All three men are originally from Afghanistan.

A federal magistrate set bail at $50,000 Monday during the men's first appearances in courtrooms in New York and Colorado.

The elder Zazi, 53, whose son is at the center of the investigation, will be allowed to go home under electronic monitoring and required to remain there except for work, medical care, religious services or court appearances, prosecutors said. He is unlikely to be released until later this week.

Prosecutors are asking that his son, 24-year-old Najibullah Zazi, be held until trial. He is scheduled to attend a detention hearing Thursday.

Ahmad Wais Afzali, through his attorney Ron Kuby, says that he did nothing wrong and that he was frantically trying to inform law enforcement of what he had seen and heard in relation to Zazi. If that's true, then it is possible that certain charges against Zazi may not be warranted. It depends on what statements he made that were lies, and what else was said. Kuby also says that the FBI went after Afzali because they blew the case against Zazi. I suspect that Kuby may be on to something here given the way information about this whole terror investigation came to light and how the media got tipped off to possible arrests, instead of the typical procedure of making arrests and then alerting media thereafter immediately prior to bringing the suspects into court.

Still, warnings were sent out to law enforcement about potential targets like arenas, stadiums, and hotels, although they remain general warnings and law enforcement doesn't know of specific plots at this time.