FBI Agents Arrest Three Men in Terror Probe

EVAN PEREZ

WASHINGTON -- Federal prosecutors arrested a 24-year-old Afghan immigrant in Aurora, Colo., who has been under questioning for days related to an alleged terror plot, charging him, his father and a third man with lying to investigators in connection with an ongoing terrorism investigation.

Associated Press

FBI agents arrested terrorism suspect Najibullah Zazi in Aurora, Colo.

The arrests grow out of an FBI investigation of "several individuals" in the U.S., Pakistan and elsewhere relating to a plot to conduct bomb attacks in the U.S., according to an FBI affidavit filed in U.S. District Court in Denver late Saturday night.

Federal agents arrested Najibullah Zazi, a legal U.S. resident of Aurora, Colo., along with his father, Mohammed Wali Zazi, 53, also of Aurora and a U.S. citizen originally from Afghanistan. In New York, FBI agents arrested Ahmad Wais Afzali, 37, an Afghan national who is a legal U.S. resident of Flushing, N.Y.

FBI agents found a laptop computer containing an image of nine-pages of handwritten notes containing instructions for making bombs in a car Najibullah Zazi rented and drove from Colorado to New York, according to affidavits released with the complaint.

Documents

• Najibullah Zazi Affidavit
• Mohammad Wali Zazi Affidavit
• Signed Complaint and Affidavit

The FBI affidavits state that Najibullah Zazi said in interviews with FBI agents that during a 2008 trip to Pakistan, he attended courses and received instruction on weapons and explosives at an al-Qaeda training facility in the northwest region of that country, the FBI affidavit said.

The younger Mr. Zazi has been at the center of national attention for a week since investigators from the joint counterterrorism bureau of the FBI and the New York Police Department raided residences in the Queens borough of that city Sept. 14.

Afghan Men Arrested in Terrorism Investigation

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Three Afghan men have been arrested in connection with an alleged plot to launch an attack in the U.S., the Justice Department said. Courtesy of Reuters.

The agents were searching for evidence in an ongoing probe of an alleged plot to explode improvised explosive devices at locations in the U.S., according to an FBI agent's sworn statement filed Saturday with the U.S. District Court in Colorado. The FBI statement alleges that Mr. Zazi, under surveillance by FBI agents, traveled from Colorado to New York on Sept. 10 in a rental car.

Authorities were on heightened alert given the anniversary of the Sept 11, 2001 attacks. NYPD officers showed a photo of Mr. Zazi to Mr. Afzali, an informant, and others in New York that day, according to the FBI statement . The following day Mr. Afzali tipped off Mr. Zazi that he was being watched, the statement says. Mr. Zazi flew home to Denver on Sept. 12, according to the statement.