FBI arrests two men in New York terror plot

Jan 8, 2010, 18:03 GMT

Washington - The Federal Bureau of Investigation on Friday arrested two men as part of a probe into last year's foiled terrorist plot targeting public transportation in New York.

The men - Adis Medunjanin, 25, and Zarein Ahmedzay, 24 - were arrested for their links to Najibullah Zazi, a legal permanent US resident of Afghan origin who reportedly trained at an al-Qaeda terrorist camp.

Medunjanin, a US citizen originally from Bosnia, and Ahmedzay, from Afghanistan, were to appear before a federal judge in Brooklyn, New York, later Friday, the New York Times reported, but officials wouldn't provide details of the charges.

Zazi, his father and an acquaintance were arrested last September over an alleged plot to detonate a bomb in New York around the anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. They were held for making false statements to investigators in a matter involving international and domestic terrorism, the Justice Department said earlier.

The arrests of Zazi, 24, 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 he drove to New York in September with a computer that contained instructions on bomb assembly and 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, 2009, 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.