Najibullah Zazi Indictment, Detention Document

9/23/2009: Najibullah Zazi indictment

This is an indictment for planned use of Weapons of Mass Destruction (in this case, bombs).

9/24/2009: Affidavit in support of detention of Najibullah Zazi

This is a much more informative document detailing why Zazi is a flight risk.

An interesting note: Zazi rented a hotel room with a stove specifically so he could cook up TATP, a fairly powerful improvised explosive.

Ramzi Yousef, working in a Manila apartment in 1995, also used a stove to prepare explosives, and TATP was found in his apartment after it was exposed.

Yousef's footprint has loomed large for years after his incarceration.

* September 11 was at least inspired by Yousef, if not wholly concocted by him.

* The 2006 London airliner bomb plot -- the reason you can't take shampoo on a plane -- involved smuggling TATP or its components onto a plane or planes. In addition to the chemical explosive coming up again, the method of smuggling and the number of targets were both extremely similar to Yousef's Bojinka plot, which would have deployed lquid explosives against a dozen U.S.-bound airliners).

* The "shoe bomb" concept used by Richard Reid is reminiscent of some of Yousef's plan for smuggling bomb components onto airplanes in the heels of his shoes. That bomb also used TATP.

* Yousef's chemical recipes and specific bomb designs continue to be distributed online through jihadi forums and at terrorist training camps.

Labels: American-Jihadists, Najibullah-Zazi

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