Attorney: 9/11 plot claim missing key ingredient

NEW YORK - Claims that an Afghan immigrant was on the verge of unleashing a terrorist attack on New York City on the anniversary of the Sept. 11 are missing a key element: explosives or the chemicals allegedly used to make them, the man's attorney said.

FBI agents have yet to find those elements and connect them to Najibullah Zazi, charged with conspiring to use weapons of mass destruction in a plot authorities say was aimed at commuter trains, attorney Arthur Folsom told a federal judge in Denver Friday.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Craig Shaffer ultimately ordered Zazi's transfer to New York, and Zazi was taken there by federal marshals.

"No traces of any kind of chemical was found in his vehicle," Folsom said of an FBI search of Zazi's car.

A federal prosecutor argued that Zazi was planning an attack to coincide with the 9/11 anniversary.

"The evidence suggests a chilling, disturbing sequence of events showing the defendant was intent on making a bomb and being in New York on 9/11, for purposes of perhaps using such items," prosecutor Tim Neff told Shaffer.

Zazi was stopped by police on Sept. 10 as he entered New York, and he dropped his plans for an attack once he realized that law enforcement was on to him, prosecutors allege.

He was sent to New York on Friday by federal marshals to face charges of conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction.

Prosecutors said Zazi received explosives training from al-Qaida in Pakistan and returned to the U.S. bent on building a bomb.

Trips to beauty supply stores
Over the summer, he and three associates went from one beauty-supply store to another in a Denver suburb buying chemicals to make explosives like those that killed dozens of people in transit bombings in London and Madrid, investigators said.

At least three and possibly more of his accomplices remain at large, and investigators have been fanning out across New York in pursuit of suspects. Authorities have also issued a flurry of terrorism warnings for sports complexes, hotels and transit systems.

A law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation said associates of Zazi visited Colorado to help him buy the chemicals using stolen credit cards before returning to New York.

Another law enforcement official said that authorities had been especially worried about Zazi's Sept. 10 visit to the city because it coincided with a visit by President Barack Obama. Police considered arresting him right away. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation continues.

Police have been especially active in the neighborhood in Queens where Zazi visited during his New York trip, staying at an apartment with a group of cab drivers and food cart operators he knows.

Zazi ran a coffee cart in Manhattan before moving to Denver this year and getting a job as an airport shuttle driver.

FBI raids beginning Sept. 14 rattled a quiet, predominantly Asian neighborhood in Queens. Muslim men said dozens of FBI agents ransacked their homes and questioned them for hours, sometimes taking DNA samples and prints from their shoes.

Because of frequent visits by police, fewer people have been attending regular services at the Masjid Hazrat Abu Bakr mosque. Zazi had returned there to pray during his brief return trip to the city earlier this month.

The FBI has also been visiting beauty shops and home-improvement stores in Colorado and New York for details about the alleged bomb-making purchases.

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