Isn't He Lovely

Najibullah Zazi [above] tried to explain his mass purchases of beauty supplies by telling a sales clerk he had "lost of girlfriends". Looking at him, I say that this should've been the first clue that this guy was up to shenanigans.


So by now it seems that the U.S. really did catch a real, live terrorist in our midst last week. Federal authorities have charged Najibullah Zazi with acquiring and preparing explosive materials like those used in the 2005 London mass transit bombings days before Zazi traveled to New York City earlier this month, asserting that he and others were involved in an al-Qaeda conspiracy to strike in the United States.

Unlike some of the post-9/11 terrorist arrests on U.S. territory - where a great deal is charged at the press conference announcing the arrests; less is charged at the press conference announcing the indictments; and - after trial - the person(s) is convicted only of not paying a parking ticket they incurred in 1997 - this time, we may have truly been saved a disaster.

Zazi, 24, received explosives training in Pakistan in 2008. From there, he returned to his home in Queens, N.Y., but almost immediately traveled to Denver upon returning in early 2009. It was there that he began preparing to make bombs. Zazi purchased large amounts of chemicals at beauty supply stores, and rented a hotel suite to experiment with mixing the materials for use in bombs. He even received urgent technical assistance on how to perfect the process, although the government has yet to say who provided that assistance. If it was a an undercover agent - and not a real al-Qaeda operative - this case may become another parking ticket.

For now, though, it appears legit. Zazi is a legal resident who was born in Afghanistan. It is not entirely clear whether he intended to strike in New York City, Denver or elsewhere, or whether he himself had decided where to strike at the time of his arrest. Earlier this month Zazi did scout a store in Queens for an acid essential in creating the bombs. Two weeks ago he slept in an apartment in Flushing, Queens, where investigators recovered a scale that could be used in making explosives.

It is not yet known whether Zazi was a mastermind of the plot or simply a willing participant acting under the direction of others. The government says that as many as three people assisted Zazi in Colorado, and Zazi consulted another person about making the bombs.

The uncertainty about Zazi’s intentions and associates may be in some part due to the fact that investigators were forced to take the investigation public and move to make hasty arrests after an imam in Queens tipped off Zazi that he was under scrutiny. I'm in favor of taking one of Zazi's homemade bombs and inserting it in said imam's rectal cavity. Why that asshole isn't in jail astounds me. The imam was arrested but inexplicably was released on bond, as was Zazi's father.

These are some of the most serious and disturbing accusations against a terrorist since 9/11 - as evidenced by the fact that nearly 100 federal agents and local officers have been working on the Zazi case in recent days and weeks.

Zazi was arrested on the evening of September 19th, and charged with lying to federal officials during three days of interrogation in Denver earlier that week. He appeared in court last Friday in Denver for a hearing during which prosecutors arranged for him to return to New York to face the most recent charges.

Elements of the bomb plot are chilling. The story begins with a trip by Zazi, along with an undetermined number of others, to Pakistan in August 2008 for an education in explosives in an al-Qaeda training camp. Zazi later returned to the United States, where, days after his return he left his family’s home in a working-class neighborhood in Queens to live with his aunt and her husband in Aurora, Colo. Almost a year after he left New York for Pakistan, guided by his notes from his al-Qaeda explosives training, Zazi began to research bomb-making chemicals on the Internet [there's that goddamned Internet again].

Then, with help from the three others who have not yet been identified, Zazi began mining beauty supply stores in and around Denver for the raw materials for a bomb. Between July and early September, apparently with patience and deliberation, these terrorists bought “unusually large quantities” of products with names like Ion Sensitive Scalp Developer, Liquid Developer Clairoxide and Ms. K Liquid 40 Volume, which contain hydrogen peroxide [why no one at these assorted beauty shops grew suspicious about the four Arab-looking gentlemen is unclear. These guys were either shopping for Elton John or they were up to no good]. The terrorists also needed acetone, according to the bomb-making notes, which can be found in nail polish remover, and a strong acid.

The products can be transformed into one of the key ingredients used to make the powerful explosive triacetone triperoxide, or TATP, one of the home brews that was the focus of his al-Qaeda studies. TATP was used in the 2005 London subway and bus bombings, which killed 52 and injured hundreds, and by the shoe bomber, Richard C. Reid, in his failed 2001 attempt to bring down a jetliner.

Employees at the Beauty Supply Warehouse in Aurora, Colo., said Zazi had been a chatty customer who came in several times. Oscar, a sales clerk who wisely did not provide his last name to the New York Times, said Zazi was asked why he was buying so many beauty supplies and replied that he “had a lot of girlfriends.” Having seen a photo of Zazi, I can tell you that should've been Oscar's first clue that Junior was up to no good.

Eventually, Zazi returned twice over the last two months to the same hotel suite in Aurora, on the night of Aug. 28th, and again on the nights of Sept. 6th and 7th. There, he followed a stovetop recipe to cook down the beauty products so the bomb-making chemicals were highly concentrated. In the hotel suite in September, Zazi apparently became increasingly agitated, trying repeatedly to reach another person, asking progressively more urgent questions about the correct mixture of ingredients to make the explosives. Among the things he asked about were questions concerning flour and ghee (clarified butter), two ingredients his bomb-making primer said could be used to help initiate an explosive. Can you imagine being the unlucky fuck in the hotel room next to this asshole? Well, to be fair, Zazi did, at some points, seem to take the safety of his hotel neighbors seriously, bookmarking an Internet site on two browsers on his laptop for “Lab Safety for Hydrochloric Acid,” one of the ingredients that can be used for TATP.

TATP has long served as the poor man’s explosive, a white crystalline solid that is relatively easy to make but is unstable and shock sensitive; it will detonate if struck with a hard blow, like by a hammer. Indeed, if it is not properly produced it can be even more unstable. For that reason, it is genearlly only used by groups that do not have access to other, more stable, explosives.

Zazi repeatedly emphasized in the communications to the unnamed person hat he needed the answers to his questions right away. The heated chemicals left traces in the hotel suite kitchen’s ventilation system [there's one hotel room I wouldn't be cooking in from here on out] that were recovered by FBI agents in recent days. Some of his shopping trips — and those of others assisting him — were captured on beauty supply store security cameras, and their purchases were recorded on receipts. The hotel security camera captured Zazi checking in on the night of Sept. 6th.

Two days later, Zazi also searched the Web site for a home improvement store in Queens for muriatic acid, the commercial name for hydrochloric acid that can also be used in TATP, and he seemed to focus on a brand of the chemical that claimed to be safer to handle and give off less fumes [once again "safety first"]. Zazi rented a car in Aurora on the same day, Sept. 8, and left the following day for New York City.

Zazi arrived in New York the next afternoon - giving you some idea of how easy it is to speed at 100 miles-per-hour across the interstates that link Colorado and New York. With him Zazi took his laptop computer on which the bomb-making instructions were stored but, apparently, no chemicals.

A tap on his cellphone showed that Zazi became suspicious after he was stopped by authorities on the George Washington Bridge as he entered New York. He became even more worried when his car was towed, apparently by federal agents who were seeking to surreptitiously search it and his laptop. If he had any doubt, though, it was removed when Zazi learned directly from the imam that law enforcement officers were tracking his activities and ultimately bought an airline ticket and returned to Denver on Sept. 12th. It is unknown how the imam himself knew about the federal investigation.

Another unsettling point is this: no one seems to know where the hell any of the chemicals or mixtures Zazi made from them might now be. Authorities in New York and the Denver area have spent the last two weeks visiting storage facilities and alerting both the public and other law enforcement officers to be on the lookout for suspicious collections of chemicals. I feel safer already.

Some officials have been intensely concerned about a possible subway attack, in part because a search of an apartment where Zazi spent the night of Sept. 10th turned up several backpacks. But the men with whom he spent the night, and who owned the backpacks, have only been questioned by the authorities. For some no doubt asinine reason, however, they have not been arrested.

It is important to note the difference in the Zazi case: he bought chemicals needed to build a bomb — hydrogen peroxide, acetone and hydrochloric acid — and in doing so, took a critical step made by few other terrorism suspects. The fact that he attended an al-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 all separate him from other domestic terrorists arrested since 2001. These are the facts that distinguish Zazi from nearly all the other terrorists in United States terrorism cases in recent years.

Indeed, more often than not the earlier terrorists 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 - not to mention brains - to be much of a threat. In some cases, the terrorists appeared to be influenced by informants or undercover agents who pledged to provide the weapons or even do some of the planning.

Still, important facts remain unknown. Unclear is whether Zazi had selected a target or a date for a bombing or had recruited others to help. There have been reports that he intended a September 11, 2009 attack, but that has not been confirmed. Moreover, it is not known fully whether Zazi had built an operational bomb. Nor is it known why, after practicing with explosive recipes in Colorado, Zazi drove to New York apparently without the chemicals or equipment.

Until those questions are answered - and until at least another half-dozen of Zazi's buddies join him in jail - the true extent of Zazi's plan will remain as mysterious as the reasoning behind why they haven't already joined him in jail.