DENVER — An Afghan immigrant was on the verge of unleashing a terrorist attack on New York City on the Sept. 11 anniversary but was scared off after drawing suspicion from police, prosecutors said Friday as they provided new details about how far along the plot was.
Najibullah Zazi, 24, was stopped by police on Sept. 10 as he entered the city, and he dropped his plans for an attack once he realized that law enforcement was onto him.
Zazi was sent to New York on Friday by federal marshals to face charges of conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction in a plot that law enforcement has said was focused on blowing up commuter trains.
"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," federal prosecutor Tim Neff told a judge in arguing for Zazi's transfer to New York.
Prosecutors said Zazi received explosives training from al-Qaida in Pakistan and returned to the U.S. bent on building a bomb.
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 also have 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 authorities had been especially worried about Zazi's Sept. 10 visit to the city because it coincided witha 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 purported bomb-making purchases.
Court papers say that during the summer, Zazi and three unidentified associates bought "unusually large quantities" of hydrogen peroxide and acetone - a flammable solvent found in nail-polish remover - from Denver-area beauty supply stores. The products had names such as Ion Sensitive Scalp Developer and Ms. K Liquid 40 Volume.
Zazi also searched the Web site of a Queens home-improvement store for another ingredient needed to make a compound called triacetone triperoxide, the explosives used by shoe bomber Richard Reid and the terrorists who carried out the London bombings that killed more than 50 people, according to court papers.
Zazi intensified his bombmaking experiments this month, preparing substances in a Colorado hotel suite he rented on Sept. 6-7 before driving 1,600 miles to New York over the course of about two days. He became aware that law enforcement was onto him when he was stopped entering the city on Sept. 10, causing the plot to unravel.
Neff said Zazi "was in the throes of making a bomb and attempting to perfect his formulation."
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority - which runs New York City's subway system, buses and commuter rails - declined to comment on the revelation of a Sept. 11-timed plot.
It reissued a statement from earlier in the week that it has boosted its police presence at "key commuter rail locations" since the terror threat became public.
Zazi "still maintains that he was not part of a terrorist cell," defense attorney Arthur Folsom said Friday. Folsom also insisted that federal agents who searched Zazi's car and apartment found no trace ofexplosives.
Zazi was scheduled to appear in federal court Tuesday in Brooklyn on charges that carry a life sentence.
Information for this article was contributed by Tom Hays, Colleen Long, Devlin Barrett and Catherine Tsai of The Associated Press.
Front Section, Pages 2 on 09/26/2009