Breaking News - Terrorist plot in the US

[incarcerated]

The neighbors at Mr. Zazi's apartment complex are a little nervous...
http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_13377270

FBI stops armed men outside Aurora apartments

The Associated Press
Posted: 09/19/2009 03:45:26 PM MDT
AURORA, Colo.—A man faces charges after he was spotted walking around an apartment complex in Aurora with a loaded rifle.
Arapahoe County sheriff's officials say FBI agents stopped 37-year-old Brian Laro, 24-year-old Timothy Guinn and an unarmed man around 1:14 a.m. Saturday. The men said they were having beers at Laro's apartment when they went to investigate what they thought was a gunshot.

Sheriff's officials say Laro had a rifle slung over his shoulder, and Guinn had a .45-caliber semiautomatic pistol in his waistband. The guns were taken as evidence.

Laro faces misdemeanor charges of disorderly conduct and prohibited use of a weapon.

Guinn's concealed weapons permit was confiscated pending a review of what happened.

[Sdiver]

Originally Posted by incarcerated

The neighbors at Mr. Zazi's apartment complex are a little nervous...
http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_13377270

FBI stops armed men outside Aurora apartments

The Associated Press
Posted: 09/19/2009 03:45:26 PM MDT
AURORA, Colo.—A man faces charges after he was spotted walking around an apartment complex in Aurora with a loaded rifle.
Arapahoe County sheriff's officials say FBI agents stopped 37-year-old Brian Laro, 24-year-old Timothy Guinn and an unarmed man around 1:14 a.m. Saturday. The men said they were having beers at Laro's apartment when they went to investigate what they thought was a gunshot.

Sheriff's officials say Laro had a rifle slung over his shoulder, and Guinn had a .45-caliber semiautomatic pistol in his waistband. The guns were taken as evidence.

Laro faces misdemeanor charges of disorderly conduct and prohibited use of a weapon.

Guinn's concealed weapons permit was confiscated pending a review of what happened.

No, not nervous....just stupid.

It is Aurora after all.

[Richard]

And so it goes...

Richard's $.02

Reasons For Afghan Men's Terror-Related Arrests Detailed By Justice Dept.
NPR, 21 Sep 2009

The Federal Bureau of Investigation late last night provided details from the affidavits related to the terrorism-related arrests Saturday evening of two Aurora, Colo.-men Najibullah Zazi, his father Mohammed Zazi and a sometime-FBI informant named Ahmad Afzali in New York.

The men were arrested for allegedly lying to law-enforcement officials. They allegedly lied to FBI agents by denying that they knew certain information of which the FBI says it determined the men were aware because the agency had legally listened to phone conversations between the men. The agency also obtained evidence through a search of a rental car being driven by Najibullah, a 24-year old shuttle bus driver.

Here are some relevant details from a Justice Department press release:

According to affidavits filed in support of the three criminal complaints, the FBI is investigating several individuals in the United States, Pakistan and elsewhere, relating to a plot to detonate improvised explosive devices in the United States.

Records from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reflect that, on Aug. 28, 2008, Najibullah Zazi flew to Peshawar, Pakistan from Newark International Airport via Geneva, Switzerland and Doha, Qatar. CBP records further reflect that Najibullah Zazi traveled from Peshawar to John F. Kennedy International Airport on or about Jan. 15, 2009.

According to the affidavits, on or about Sept. 9, 2009, FBI agents observed Najibullah Zazi depart his residence in Colorado in a rented car. He drove to New York City, arriving the following day, and spent the night at a residence in Flushing, Queens ("the Queens Residence.")

On Sept. 10, 2009, New York City Police Department (NYPD) detectives met with defendant Afzali, whom the NYPD had utilized as a source in the past. According to the affidavits, the detectives questioned Afzali about Najibullah Zazi and others and showed him photographs of Najibullah Zazi and others. Afzali allegedly told the detectives he recognized Najibullah Zazi and several of the men in the photographs.

According to affidavits, on Sept. 11, 2009, defendant Mohammed Zazi placed a call to Afzali which lasted approximately 20 minutes. That same day, the FBI lawfully intercepted a phone conversation between Mohammed Zazi and his son, Najibullah Zazi. An affidavit alleges that, during the conversation, Mohammed Zazi told his son that he had spoken to Afzali who had informed him about being visited by law enforcement and shown photographs. Mohammed Zazi told his son that Afzali would call him and he advised his son to speak with Afzali "before anything else," according to affidavits.

In the midst of this phone call, Najibullah Zazi allegedly received a call from Afzali, who discussed his meeting with law enforcement the day before. According to a draft summary of the transcription, Afzali allegedly stated: "I was exposed to something yesterday from law enforcement. And they came to ask me about your characters." Afzali also allegedly asked Najibullah Zazi about his last trip to Pakistan and added, "Listen, our phone call is being monitored."

According to the affidavits, in another legally intercepted phone conversation on Sept. 11, 2009, Najibullah Zazi told Afzali that his car had been stolen and that he feared he was being "watched." Afzali allegedly asked if there was any "evidence in his car," and Najibullah Zazi said no.

That same day, FBI agents conducted a legally authorized search of Najibullah Zazi's rental car, which was parked near the Queens residence. During the search, agents found a laptop computer containing a jpeg image of nine-pages of handwritten notes. According to the affidavits, the notes contain formulations and instructions regarding the manufacture and handling of initiating explosives, main explosives charges, explosives detonators and components of a fuzing system. On Sept. 12, 2009, Najibullah Zazi flew from La Guardia Airport in New York to Denver.

On Sept. 16, 2009, FBI agents interviewed Najibullah Zazi in Denver. According to an affidavit, when he was asked about and shown handwritten notes regarding explosives found on his laptop computer, Najibullah Zazi falsely asserted that he had never seen the document before and stated he had not written the notes.

On Sept. 17 and 18, 2009, Najibullah Zazi was further interviewed by the FBI in Denver. According to affidavits, Najibullah Zazi admitted in the interviews that during his 2008 trip to Pakistan, he attended courses and received instruction on weapons and explosives at an al-Qaeda training facility in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan.

The affidavits allege that, on Sept. 17, 2009, Afzali was interviewed by authorities in New York where he falsely asserted in a written statement that he did not tell Najibullah Zazi or Mohammed Zazi that authorities had approached him seeking information about Najibullah Zazi. According to the affidavits, Afzali also falsely asserted that he never told Najibullah Zazi that they were being monitored on the phone and that he never asked Najibullah Zazi about evidence in his car.

The affidavits further allege that, on Sept. 16, 2009, Mohammed Zazi was interviewed by the FBI in Denver where he was asked whether anyone had called him and told him about his son's activities and any trouble regarding his son. According to the affidavits, Mohammed Zazi falsely stated that he had never called anyone in New York other than his son and he had never received a call from anyone in New York. He allegedly revised his statement to say he had received one call from an individual who informed him that his son had missed his flight. According to the affidavits, Mohammed Zazi was later asked if he knew anyone by the name of Afzali and he said he did not.

The full affadavits can be accessed through links on the NPR web-site at:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/...s_terrorr.html

[incarcerated]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationwo...,5320039.story

Terror probe widens in U.S.

By Josh Meyer and Tina Susman
September 22, 2009
Reporting from Washington and New York -
Federal authorities have tied as many as a dozen people to a suspected Al Qaeda-linked bomb plot on U.S. soil as they continue to gather evidence to indict on terrorism charges the young Afghan immigrant at the center of the case, law enforcement officials said Monday.

Authorities said that they did not know the exact number of potential suspects or many of their identities, but that they had been connected through electronic intercepts, surveillance, seized evidence and interviews.

A federal law enforcement official and others, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the high level of secrecy surrounding the investigation, said the suspects appeared concentrated in the New York area, with possibly others in the suspect's home state of Colorado and elsewhere.

Of particular interest are several individuals that Najibullah Zazi, 24, had met or communicated with on a trip to New York two weeks ago....

[Richard]

And so it goes...

Richard's $.02

How Using Imam In Terror Inquiry Backfired On Police
William Rashbaum and Al Baker, NYT, 22 Sep 2009

A decision to enlist a Queens imam in an effort to develop information about the man at the center of a long-running cross-country terrorism investigation backfired earlier this month.

In fact, federal prosecutors have now charged the imam, a onetime source of information for the New York Police Department, contending that he betrayed the police by warning the suspect and then lied about it, and maybe even coached him on what to say if he was questioned.

Several law enforcement officials have said the imam’s disclosures went a long way toward forcing their hand in an extremely sensitive investigation of a possible Qaeda plot. The situation left them scrambling to conduct raids and arrest the suspect sooner than they might have otherwise, a development that they said could make it harder to identify others involved and develop evidence against them.

Several officials — all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity because much of the investigation is classified — have said that the inquiry, which had been under way for months, could well have continued, tracking the communications, meetings, plans and associates of the suspect, Najibullah Zazi, 24.

And one official said that the public nature of the new phase of the inquiry would probably require more work and more resources to accomplish its goal: to determine whether a bomb plot was far along and to identify its target and the operatives involved.

Current and former police and federal officials said the approach to the imam, and the resulting disruption, added to a long history of tensions and rivalry between the New York Police Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which in recent years have developed a new dimension: a clash of sorts within the Police Department, between its two primary antiterrorism units.

Those tensions, according to police and federal officials, have led to communication and coordination problems between the two police units and between one of them, the Intelligence Division, and the F.B.I. The other unit, the Counterterrorism Bureau, oversees the more than 100 detectives assigned to work with the F.B.I. on the Joint Terrorism Task Force.

Current and former police and federal officials said that the effort on Sept. 10 to enlist the imam, Ahmad Wais Afzali, was undertaken by detectives from the Intelligence Division. They showed him pictures of the central suspect and three other men, some of the officials said.

In the subsequent hours, Mr. Afzali spoke both with the suspect, Mr. Zazi, a Denver airport shuttle bus driver, and his father. Court papers say he told the younger Mr. Zazi, who had driven from Colorado to Queens on Sept. 9 and 10, that the authorities had been looking for him.

Neither the police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, nor Joseph M. Demarest Jr., the assistant director in charge of the F.B.I.’s New York office, would answer questions about what had happened with the imam. But the two men issued a joint statement on Tuesday evening.

“The F.B.I. and the N.Y.P.D. work together on joint investigations and side by side in task forces on a daily basis,” the statement said. “We have a particularly close partnership between the F.B.I. and the N.Y.P.D.’s Counterterrorism Bureau and Intelligence Division. This collaboration is an essential part of what helps to protect New York City from another terrorist attack.”

Indeed, their efforts through the Joint Terrorism Task Force have led to any number of successes, some that have been made public and some that have not.

Since taking over the department three months after the attack of Sept. 11, 2001, Mr. Kelly has greatly expanded both the intelligence and counterterrorism divisions. The intelligence unit, run by one of Mr. Kelly’s close advisers, David Cohen, a former top Central Intelligence Agency official, has created a network of informants around the city, sent agents overseas and conducted investigations independent of the F.B.I. and the police detectives assigned to the Joint Terrorism Task Force.

The two units sometimes clash, and while in years past police investigators often complained that the F.B.I. withheld information, complaints about access to sensitive information have recently come from F.B.I. agents and task force detectives.

One federal official said the rivalry between the police antiterrorism units had in some cases led the Intelligence Division “to freelance around and do their own thing.”

With the investigation continuing, it is unclear precisely what led Intelligence Division detectives to approach the imam.

No one has suggested that the detectives who approached Mr. Afzali were doing anything other than what they believed their supervisors wanted. The unit is tightly managed by Mr. Cohen, who has long irritated relations between the Police Department and the F.B.I., according to several police and federal officials. He makes no secret of his disdain for the bureau, they said.

Both F.B.I. and police officials said that much effective investigative work had been done in the case, including over the last 10 days. Arrests had been made, they said, and critical information gathered.

On Tuesday, Mr. Kelly said the investigation might actually have just begun. He said that leads were being followed, that investigators were focused on a number of Mr. Zazi’s associates and that more arrests may follow.

One government official said that some of the people under investigation were cooperating with the authorities and others were not, and that the inquiry was at a critical juncture.

“It’s a fluid thing,” the official said of this aspect of the investigation. “We are at a critical stage where people can come forward and decide to tell the truth.”

Mr. Kelly’s efforts to bolster the city’s antiterrorism program have been rooted in his belief that the federal government failed to protect New York from the Sept. 11 attacks. His aggressive, often independent initiatives have been widely praised.

“Is the guy in Colorado under arrest, the guy who went to training camps in Pakistan? Yes,” said the Police Department’s chief spokesman, Paul J. Browne, noting that two additional people, including the imam, had been arrested.

Mr. Zazi and his father, Mohammed Wali Zazi, 53, were arrested late Saturday in Denver on charges that they made false statements during a terrorism investigation. Mr. Afzali was arrested early Sunday in Queens. The younger Mr. Zazi and Mr. Afzali were held pending bail hearings scheduled for Thursday. The elder Mr. Zazi will be released on $50,000 bond.

A lawyer for Mr. Afzali, Ronald L. Kuby, said on Monday that his client did not lie to federal authorities. “They blew their own investigation, and now they are trying to blame my client,” Mr. Kuby said.

Mr. Browne said any criticism of the investigation by current or former officials was regrettable and unfounded.

“In the face of success, some people can’t resist taking pot shots,” Mr. Browne said. “It’s chronic, but fortunately they are in the minority.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/23/ny...er=rss&emc=rss

[SF_BHT]

The two units sometimes clash, and while in years past police investigators often complained that the F.B.I. withheld information, complaints about access to sensitive information have recently come from F.B.I. agents and task force detectives.

One federal official said the rivalry between the police antiterrorism units had in some cases led the Intelligence Division “to freelance around and do their own thing.”

I see this every day between Federal LEO's and Fed and Local Agencies. It sometimes causes a lot of difficulties and the measuring who is bigger just gets old. The funny thing is that neither agency see's anything wrong with their narrow view and propriety outlook.

I just hope that the Terrorists do not get off on some technicality caused by this rivalry. I have seen it happen and it sickens me each time.

[Utah Bob]

Looks like this guy might have been pretty far along in planning.

Source

NBC News and news services
updated 12 minutes ago

NEW YORK - A grand jury has indicted terrorism suspect Najibullah Zazi on a charge of conspiracy to detonate bombs after the U.S. government alleged that he plotted for more than a year, had recently bought bomb-making ingredients and was looking for "urgent" help in the past two weeks to make explosives.

Zazi, arrested in Denver last weekend on a count of lying to terrorism investigators, was charged in New York with conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction.

The two-page indictment offers few details, but a separate document released Thursday — a government motion seeking to deny bail to the 24-year-old Afghan immigrant — lays out evidence gathered by investigators in a long investigation into a possible al-Qaida plot.

The airport shuttle driver began plotting to "use one or more weapons of mass destruction" between Aug. 1, 2008, and September 2009 against the United States, the papers say.

In July and August, Zazi purchased unusually large amounts of hydrogen peroxide and acetone products from beauty supply stores in the Denver metropolitan area, the document says.

He also searched the Internet for home improvement stores in Queens before driving a rental car for a two-day trip to the city, the document says.

The document says that on Sept. 6 and Sept. 7, Zazi tried on multiple times to communicate with another individual "seeking to correct mixtures of ingredients to make explosives."

"Each communication," the papers say, was "more urgent than the last."

Chemical residue allegedly found
On those days, Zazi rented a suite at a hotel where he lives in Aurora, Colo., authorities charge. The room had a kitchen, and subsequent FBI testing for explosives in the suite found chemical residue in the vent above the stove.

In a statement, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said that "we are investigating a wide range of leads related to this alleged conspiracy, and we will continue to work around the clock to ensure that anyone involved is brought to justice.

"We believe any imminent threat arising from this case has been disrupted," he added.

Senior counterterrorism officials, speaking with NBC News on condition of anonymity, said investigators are "actively" monitoring multiple suspects in New York and Denver.

The number keeps changing, said one official, depending on analysis of contacts that Zazi has had in the U.S. in recent weeks. At one point last week, the number had reached eight in New York and five in Denver.

Zazi has publicly denied any terrorist plotting but authorities have said he admitted to the FBI that he took a bomb-making course at a training camp in Pakistan.

One official said there are conflicting signals about whether the alleged plot is connected to al-Qaida. Among those under surveillance are immigrants from at least three predominantly Muslim states, suggesting the involvement of an international terror group, the official said.

Officials say sponsorship of the camp where Zazi allegedly received terrorist training is uncertain, with the possibility that it was not an al-Qaida camp but run instead by one of the various Islamic militant groups in Pakistan. Officials noted that two Pakistani groups, Lashkhar e Taiba and Jaish e Muhammed, both have camps.

"It doesn’t really matter," said one of them. "The camps all espouse the same basic philosophy and teach the same basic techniques. It’s about killing the infidel."

There is no indication of involvement by al-Qaida leaders Osama bin Laden or Ayman al-Zawahri, one official said.

Other pieces of evidence developed by investigators show a lack of sophistication that would be unusual for an al-Qaida plot, including the fact that three of those suspected of involvement visited a U-Haul office in Queens to rent a trailer but none had credit cards, an official said.

Obama briefed regularly
Still, say officials, the case is viewed as serious enough for President Barack Obama to receive daily updates — sometimes twice a day — from law enforcement and intelligence officials. The documents released Thursday don't specify a specific time and place of a possible attack, but counterterrorism agents feared he and others might have been planning to detonate homemade bombs on New York City commuter trains.

Newsweek reported Thursday that investigators have not yet recovered all of the explosives components they accuse Zazi of purchasing. Two counter-terrorism officials close to the investigation said recovery of the materials was part of the "ongoing investigation."

[Utah Bob]

More:

Authorities plan to transfer Zazi to the federal court in the New York borough of Brooklyn to face the new charge.

Facing an earlier charge of lying to investigators, Zazi and his father appeared in a Denver court Thursday, while a New York City imam also went before a Brooklyn court.

Zazi's hearing was delayed until Friday after his lawyer said he had not yet received the new charges.

His father, Mohammed Zazi, was ordered freed under court supervision until an Oct. 9 hearing. Afzali was released in New York on $1.5 million bond.

Authorities earlier said they found bomb-making instructions on a hard drive on Zazi's laptop computer but still were unsure of the specific target or scope of a possible terrorist attack.

The arrests came after the raids of several apartments in the Queens neighborhood, where Zazi had driven from Denver to visit earlier this month, and were followed by a flurry of nationwide warnings of possible strikes on transit, sports and entertainment complexes.

On Wednesday, hundreds of federal agents and NYPD investigators again fanned out in the neighborhood where apartments were searched — and backpacks and cell phones removed — over a week ago, to re-interview "people previously encountered" during previous raids there, and to locate others who know them, according to a law enforcement official familiar with the probe.

The effort also includes a review of phone and other records that could link potential suspects to one another or identify new ones.

"Many of the people we've spoken to have been cooperative," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to The Associated Press because the investigation is ongoing.

The official said business owners also are on the list of possible witnesses in a potential homemade-bomb plot. The official declined to identify those businesses, but authorities regularly monitor sales by suppliers of chemicals that could be used in improvised explosives.

U.S. intelligence and law enforcement had been monitoring Zazi for a year, suggested one official. Their initial interest was spurred by contacts he had made in Pakistan with "well known bad guys with reputations and histories," that is terrorists along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

The contacts were mostly “message traffic”, said the official, that is telephone conversations and e-mail. Once US intelligence understood Zazi was a US resident, the case was turned over to federal law enforcement. Officials would not reveal the identity of which terrorists Zazi had been in contact with.

Was surveillance botched?
But questions lingered about whether early missteps hindered the investigation. A criminal complaint suggests police acting without the FBI's knowledge might have inadvertently blown the surveillance and forced investigators' hand by questioning Afzali — considered a trusted police source in the community — about Zazi and other possible plotters.

The imam, it says, turned around and tipped off Zazi by calling him the next day and saying in a recorded conversation, "They asked me about you guys."

The detectives referred to in the recently unsealed criminal complaint work for a division that operates independently from an FBI-run terrorism task force.

Police officials say that their investigators reached out to Afzali — showing him pictures of four possible suspects to identify, including Zazi — only after receiving fresh information from the terrorism task force that a terrorism plot was possibly in progress.

In a joint statement, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly and Joe Demarest, head of the FBI office in New York, denied reports that the questioning of Afzali and his alleged betrayal had caused a rift between the agencies.

The New York Times, quoting unnamed current and former police officials, reported in Thursday editions that the New York Police Department transferred two commanders this week, including one from its counterterrorism bureau. NYPD top spokesman Paul Browne would not confirm the transfers or comment late Wednesday.

[Richard]

Good summary so far - points out complexity of aspirational vs operational plotters of those with strong anti-govt sentiment.

And so it goes...

Richard's $.02

Terror Case Called One of Most Serious in Years
David Johnston and Scott Shane, NYT, 24 Sep 2009

Since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, senior government officials have announced dozens of terrorism cases that on closer examination seemed to diminish as legitimate threats. The accumulating evidence against a Denver airport shuttle driver suggests he may be different, with some investigators calling his case the most serious in years.

Documents filed in Brooklyn against the driver, Najibullah Zazi, contend he bought chemicals needed to build a bomb — hydrogen peroxide, acetone and hydrochloric acid — and in doing so, Mr. Zazi took a critical step made by few other terrorism suspects.

If government allegations are to be believed, Mr. Zazi, a legal immigrant from Afghanistan, had carefully prepared for a terrorist attack. He attended a Qaeda training camp in Pakistan, received training in explosives and stored in his laptop computer nine pages of instructions for making bombs from the same kind of chemicals he had bought.

While many important facts remain unknown, those allegations alone would distinguish Mr. Zazi from nearly all the other defendants in United States terrorism cases in recent years. More often than not the earlier suspects emerged as angry young men, inflamed by the rhetoric of Osama bin Laden or his associates. Some were serious in intent. More than a few seemed to be malcontents without the organization, technical skills and financing to be much of a threat. In some cases, the subjects appeared to be influenced by informants or undercover agents who pledged to provide the weapons or even do some of the planning.

In two cases unrelated to Mr. Zazi in which charges were announced on Thursday, in fact, the subjects dealt extensively with undercover agents.

The Zazi case “actually looks like the case the government kept claiming it had but never did,” said Karen J. Greenberg, executive director of the Center on Law and Security at New York University law school.

Her center has studied all the prosecutions of terrorism-related crimes since 2001, and she said many had turned out to be “fantasy terrorism cases” where the threat seemed modest or even nonexistent.

This time, she said, “the ingredients here are quite scary,” and the government’s statements have had none of the bombast and exaggeration that accompanied some previous arrest announcements.

Jarret Brachman, author of “Global Jihadism” and a consultant to the government about terrorism, said some details — like what individuals trained Mr. Zazi in Pakistan — remained to be learned. But he said the case was “shaping up to be one of the most serious terrorist bomb plots developed in the United States,” one resembling the London public transit attacks of July 2005.

“You don’t manufacture homemade TATP explosives unless you want to kill people and destroy infrastructure,” Dr. Brachman said, using the abbreviation for the combination of chemicals said to be involved in the Zazi plot.

In some earlier investigations, federal officials seized on what were widely viewed as marginal cases in an apparent effort to show results and justify aggressive steps being taken in the campaign against terrorism. As a result, people in and out of government have become dubious about assertions of the grave danger posed by any particular group of defendants.

In August, for example, William Webb, a federal magistrate in North Carolina, ordered Daniel P. Boyd, an antigovernment militant, and several other men detained on terrorism charges. But the judge expressed skepticism in court when prosecutors asserted that by talking about “going to the beach,” a defendant meant he intended to engage in violent acts overseas.

But even cases that appear insubstantial can be more complex. For example, on Thursday, Mr. Boyd and two other defendants were charged with additional crimes: conducting reconnaissance of the Marine Corps base at Quantico, Va., and obtaining armor-piercing ammunition with the intent to attack Americans, court documents say.

Even in Mr. Zazi’s case, veteran counterterrorism investigators who regard it as significant acknowledge that important facts remain unknown. Unclear are whether Mr. Zazi had selected a target or a date for a bombing or had recruited others to help.

Moreover, it is not understood fully whether he had built an operational bomb, officials briefed on the case said. Nor is it known why, after practicing with explosive recipes in Colorado, Mr. Zazi drove to New York without chemicals or equipment, the officials said.

Some of the earliest terrorist operatives arrested after the 2001 attacks had direct ties not just to Al Qaeda, but to Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the chief organizer of Sept. 11.

But in recent years, foiled plots announced with fanfare in Washington have sometimes involved unsophisticated people who seemed hardly capable of organizing a major attack.

In some cases, the role of Al Qaeda has been played by an F.B.I. informant or undercover agent who seemed to provide much of the energy for the plotting.

For example, on Thursday prosecutors in Illinois charged a 29-year-old man with trying to kill federal employees by detonating a car bomb at the federal building in Springfield. He tried to carry out the attack while accompanied by an undercover officer of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, according to government legal papers. The vehicle was supplied by the F.B.I., which had placed a dummy device inside.

In yet another case disclosed on Thursday, F.B.I. agents in Texas arrested a 19-year-old illegal immigrant from Jordan and charged him with trying to bomb a 60-story office tower in Dallas. Again, F.B.I. undercover agents posing as members of a Qaeda sleeper cell met with the man for months and supplied a Ford Explorer containing inert material resembling a bomb.

In a 2006 case, a group of Haitian-born men in Miami who had spoken of trying to take down the Sears Tower in Chicago were supplied by an informant with cash, video cameras and boots. The first two attempts to try the men ended in mistrials, but five men were convicted in May in that case after a third trial.

F.B.I. officials have admitted that such cases are “aspirational” rather than operational. But they note that if the Sept. 11 hijackers — some of whom were unsophisticated recent arrivals to the United States — had been interrupted early on, they might have looked amateurish and the notion that they could turn jetliners into missiles far-fetched.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/25/us...er=rss&emc=rss