Queens college grad accused of conspiring with airport shuttle bus driver to kill American service members

Hmmmm. Are those really the salient details that New York Times readers need to know about Adis Medujanin and Najibullah Zazi in order to understand why they entered into this conspiracy?

Or might the Queens college grad and the shuttle bus driver have shared a common motivating ideology? Naaah. "Queens Man Is Accused in Plot to Kill Service Members," by William K. Rashbaum in the New York Times, January 19

A federal prosecutor told a judge on Tuesday that a man who traveled to Pakistan in 2008 to attend a Qaeda training camp conspired to kill American service members in Afghanistan.

The prosecutor, Assistant United States Attorney James P. Loonam, said his office expected to seek additional charges against the man, Adis Medunjanin, 25, a Queens College graduate, and might consolidate his case with that of a shuttle bus driver, Najibullah Zazi, 24, who prosecutors say also attended the camp and was charged last year in a bomb plot.

Mr. Loonam made the comments during a hearing in federal court in Brooklyn in the case of Mr. Medunjanin, who was charged in a two-count indictment unsealed Jan. 9 with conspiring to commit murder in a foreign country and with receiving military-type training from Al Qaeda.

The bare-bones two-page indictment had provided almost no details about the alleged conspiracy, and while Mr. Loonam's comments in court were far from expansive, they constituted the most detailed description to date of the alleged plot.

"In August 2008, the defendant traveled with others from the United States to Pakistan, with the intent of killing U.S. service members in Afghanistan," Mr. Loonam told the judge in the case, Raymond J. Dearie of Federal District Court in Brooklyn....

With thanks to JihadWatch

Seventeen Arrested in U.S. For Supplying Hezbollah

From CAN:

The Justice Department announced on November 23 that 17 people had been arrested for providing supplies to the Hezbollah terrorist organization, The Investigative Project on Terrorism reported. Eight of the suspects were caught in an FBI sting that began in 2007.

Two of the suspects, Hassan Hadroj and Dib Hani Harb, are said by the government to have tried to provide Hezbollah with stolen cash, fake passports, counterfeit money and 1,200 machine guns.

The FBI gave 30,000 stolen cell phones, as well as laptops and Playstation 2 video game systems to the suspects who allegedly planned to ship them to the terrorist group.

“It is well known that terrorist organizations engage in “traditional” criminal activities for the purpose of funding their violent jihad-for instance the use of cigarette smuggling,” said the Investigative Project on Terrorism.

“Just as likely, however, is that some or all of these phones were brought to Lebanon where they were provided to Hezbollah operatives for the purposes of having disposable cell phones for planning and carrying out attacks.”

In September, two individuals living in Queens were indicted after being caught in an FBI sting using an informant. The two sought to provide Hezbollah with cars, guns, ammunition, bulletproof vests, and night vision goggles, according to a Justice Department press release.

A New Jersey resident also pled guilty this year to being paid $112,000 by Hezbollah to provide programming from the group’s television station to satellite users. His co-conspirator pled guilty to the charges the previous December.

World Threats

New York imam pleads not guilty to charges in jihad terror plot

Of course he must not have had anything to do with this plot.

How could an imam misunderstand Islam on such a huge scale?

Couldn't happen, right? Right? Ahmad Afzali Update. "Queens Imam Pleads Not Guilty To Federal Charges," from NY1 News, November 2

A Queens imam accused of tipping off a suspected al-Qaida operative pleaded not guilty today during his arraignment....

Prosecutors say Afzali told alleged terror suspect Najibullah Zazi and his father the two were under surveillance and then lied to the FBI about it. Afzali has denied the charges.

Zazi is being held without bond in the city. He is accused of planning to build homemade bombs to use in an attack on the city's mass transit system....

Source: JihadWatch

Muslim advocates charge NYPD is racial profiling in Queens raids tied to alleged Zazi terror plot

Recent terror raids in Queens have led to a spike in fear and racial profiling, Muslim advocates charge.

About 40 people rallied outside the Flushing Public Library Saturday to draw attention to what they called an uptick in targeted policing.

The rally was in response to raids last month linked to a suspected bomb plot. Najibullah Zazi, 24, who authorities say was trained at an Al Qaeda terror camp, pleaded not guilty to conspiring to detonate explosives.

"An entire community of people and religion should not be profiled or characterized as terrorists because of [one] certain investigation," said Monami Maulik, who runs the South Asian immigrant rights group Desis Rising Up and Moving.

Naiz Khan, who allowed Zazi to stay at his Flushing apartment, said FBI agents raided his flat and he hasn't been able to find work since.

"I was so scared and I was so nervous," he said. "I have been so affected by this."

"People are scared," said Sultan Faiz, a leader at Abu Bakar Mosque in Queens.

Organizers say Muslims in New York haven't been this scared since the months after 9/11, when some were subject to discrimination across the country.

The NYPD issued a statement saying they don't engage in racial profiling.

Source: New York Daily News

Terror suspect: 'Our phone call is being monitored'

AURORA, Colorado
One of three men charged with lying to federal agents during a terrorism probe warned a co-defendant that their phone call was being monitored, according to court papers.

FBI agents included what they said was a transcript of the intercepted call in affidavits supporting the charges against Najibullah Zazi, his father Mohammed Wali Zazi and Ahmad Wais Afzali.

All three face court appearances Monday in a case that the Justice Department said stretches from Colorado and New York to Pakistan.

"I was exposed to something yesterday from the authorities," Afzali told Najibullah Zazi in a September 11 call. "And they came to ask me about your characters. They asked me about you guys ... I told them that they are innocent, law-abiding."

Afzali said, however, called the questions from police "a good sign."

"The bad sign is for them coming to you guys and picking you up automatically," he said. And he told the younger Zazi, "Don't get into the Afghanistan garbage, Iraq garbage ... Listen, our phone call is being monitored."

The probe emerged after a series of raids in Queens last Monday, three days after the intercepted phone calls. A police stop of Najibullah Zazi during a visit to New York had raised investigators' concern that he would discover he was under surveillance, a former counterterrorism official familiar with the investigation told CNN last week.

Najibullah Zazi, who spent three days being questioned by FBI agents last week, and his father were arrested Saturday night in the Denver, Colorado, suburb of Aurora, the Justice Department said.

Zazi, 24, and his 53-year-old father are expected to make their first appearance in a Colorado federal court Monday, while Afzali, 37, is scheduled to appear in a New York court the same day. All three are originally from Afghanistan. Muhammed Wali Zazi is a naturalized U.S. citizen, while Afzali and Najibullah Zazi are permanent legal residents. If convicted, each faces eight years in prison.

The Zazis and Afzali, a Muslim cleric and funeral director from the New York borough of Queens, are among several people under investigation as part of a plot to detonate bombs in the United States, according to the Justice Department.

However, federal agents have "no specific information regarding the timing, location or target of any planned attack," David Kris, the assistant attorney general for national security, said in a statement announcing the arrests Saturday night.

Read more here,,,,

Source: CNN

New York jihad suspect: Hey, I don't have Al-Qaeda ties, and I ain't talking to the Feds anymore

By Robert Spencer

Contradicting reports from yesterday. "Zazi breaks off talks with FBI, calls reports of terror ties 'nonsense,'" by Kirk Mitchell, Bruce Finley and Felisa Cardona for The Denver Post, September 19 .

The Aurora man targeted in an anti-terrorism investigation and his attorney abruptly broke off a planned meeting with FBI agents this morning.

"Mr. (Najibullah) Zazi and (attorney) Mr. (Art) Folsom will not be meeting with the FBI today," Folsom's spokeswoman Wendy Aiello told The Denver Post Saturday morning. "No future meetings are planned at this time."

She said they've decided that it is in Zazi's best interest given the progress of negotiations so far, Aiello said.

"Certainly there are inaccuracies in the reporting over the last 24 hours," she said.

In a phone interview with the Denver Post this morning, Zazi, 24, said during lengthy interviews with the FBI over the last three days he has not admitted any link to the terrorist group, to participation in insurgency training in Pakistan or to involvement in a terrorist plot.

"It's not true," Zazi said. "I have nothing to hide. It's all media publications reporting whatever they want. They have been reporting all this nonsense."...

Meantime, the New York Post cited law enforcement sources in reporting this morning that in the second sweep of the week, FBI agents took seven associates of Zazi's into custody yesterday.

The seven Queens residents had been under 24-hour surveillance since the earlier raids, and some of them already had their homes searched, the newspaper reported. There were no criminal charges as of late last night, the New York Post reported.

The New York Daily News also cited anonymous sources in a report that the FBI is investigating whether seven Afghan men tried to rent a 26-foot moving truck, the biggest truck at a Queens U-Haul on Sept. 9.

Multiple media outlets quoted anonymous sources Friday in reporting that Zazi admitted to some level of contact with al-Qaeda and that he and his attorney were negotiating a plea deal in connection with an admission that he had deeper ties to the group.

The Denver Post has been unable to confirm those reports. However, in an interview with 9News, Folsom denied he was negotiating a plea deal.

The Associated Press, citing a senior U.S. intelligence official, reported Friday that Zazi has indicated he is associated with al-Qaeda and played a key role in a planned terrorist attack.

Zazi said the reports aren't even logical.

"If it was true, they wouldn't allow me to leave," Zazi said. "I don't think the FBI or the police would allow anyone who admits being a terrorist to go free for one minute."...

One would hope not, but you never know these days.

Source: JihadWatch

FBI unit set for more anti-terror raids in Queens: Colorado home raided

The elite FBI Hostage Rescue Team is poised to make more anti-terror raids in Queens, sources told the Daily News.

The discovery of cell phones and back packs raised fears that terrorists were planning a Madrid-style subway bombing plot, sources said.

Source: NY Daily News

Queens terror raids part of FBI probe into Denver-based cell plotting attack on 9/11 scale

The massive FBI probe that triggered raids in Queens is focused on a Denver-based terror cell plotting another attack on the scale of 9/11, the Daily News learned Tuesday.

Hundreds of FBI agents are on the ground in Colorado, conducting round-the-clock surveillance on five suspects - including a man who recently visited Queens, sources told The News.

New York authorities searched three Flushing apartments and detained several men - later released - after getting a warrant to look for bomb-making components, explosive powders and fuses.

"The FBI is seriously spooked about these guys planning another 9/11," a former senior counterterrorism official told the News. "This is not some ... FBI informant-driven case. This is the real thing."

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly told reporters it's an ongoing investigation with plenty of "substance."

The 24-7 counterterror operation included Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants used to intercept calls and e-mails, as well as overseas-linked wiretaps to eavesdrop on Arabic and Pashto-speaking targets.

Sources said the investigation's targets are Afghans - an unusual development. Al Qaeda prefers Arabs and Pakistanis as there overseas operatives.

FBI officials are furious at Kelly over Monday's raids because the NYPD seemed intent on scaring off the cell - which is believed to be plotting a New York attack.

The FBI hoped to wait and determine what the Colorado cell was planning.

Two other sources confirmed the FBI-NYPD rift. An investigator involved in the case said Kelly prefers to "act too soon rather than act too late."

NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said it is "an utter fabrication that the FBI is furious with Kelly or that Kelly fought to shut down the action early."

Source: NY Daily News