Al-Qaeda Leaders Guided Would-Be Subway Bombers

Plotter delivers anti-Zionist diatribe at trial
By Nick McMaster,  Newser Staff
Posted Apr 23, 2010 4:25 PM CDT
Al-Qaeda Leaders Guided Would-Be Subway Bombers
This Jan. 8, 2010 file courtroom sketch shows Zarein Ahmedzay, right, with his attorney Michael Marinaccio speaking during his arraignment at Brooklyn federal court in New York.   (AP Photo/Elizabeth Williams, File)

Al-Qaeda leaders were directly behind the plot to bomb the New York City subway system, one of the would-be terrorists testified today. Zarein Ahmedzay said he and Najibullah Zazi met with senior leaders of the terrorist group—both since killed in US drone attacks—who encouraged and facilitated their desire to organize a suicide bombing, the New York Times reports. Ahmedzay was in court to plead guilty to the charges against him; Zazi pleaded guilty in February and has been cooperating with prosecutors.

In a New York courtroom, Ahmedzay calmly recalled his contact with the terror group's leaders and then segued into railing against an alleged Zionist conspiracy within the US government. “The real enemies of this country are the ones destroying this country from within, a special group of Zionist Jews who run a permanent shadow government over the United States of America,” the defendant said before being silenced by the judge.
(More al-Qaeda stories.)

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