Afghan man indicted in US bombing conspiracy

Sep 24, 2009, 15:44 GMT

Washington - A federal court in New York has indicted an Afghan man on charges of conspiring to use weapons of mass destruction in the United States, the Justice Department said Thursday.

Najibullah Zazi, 24, a legal permanent US resident of Afghan origin, was arrested Saturday along with his father and an acquaintance for making false statements to investigators in a matter involving international and domestic terrorism.

The arrests of Zazi, his father Mohammed, 53, and Ahmad Wais Afzali, 37, took place after federal agents conducted raids in Colorado and New York over a possible plot to detonate bombs on public transportation targets.

According to officials, Zazi admitted to attending an al-Qaeda facility in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan last year, where he received training in the use of weapons and explosives.

Court documents say that the he drove to New York last week with a computer that contained instructions on bomb assembly and then later lied about the origins of the instructions.

According to records from US Customs and Border Protection, on August 28, 2008, Najibullah Zazi flew to Peshawar in Pakistan, returning to the United States in January 2009.

On September 11, the FBI claims to have recovered a laptop from him with pictures and instructions on the manufacture and handling of explosives.

If convicted, Zazi faces a potential sentence of life in prison.

Afzali, an imam at a mosque in Queens, is accused of lying about whether he warned the Zazis that federal investigators were asking about them. Afzali has reportedly served as a police informant.