Najibullah Zazi went from Pakistan to suburban Denver beauty shops in a hunt for the supplies and skill to make hydrogen peroxide bombs for al Qaida, authorities charged in papers describing one of the most significant post-9/11 terror threats to the United States.
The 12-page memorandum outlining the alleged conspiracy also used the repeated phrase ``and others,' evidence of a possible al Qaida cell plotting a home-made bomb attack on US soil. Zazi, a 24-year-old coffee cart owner in New York and Denver airport shuttle driver, was charged in New York with conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction. He was to appear in court in Denver on Friday.
Since he was arrested a week ago on a lesser count of lying to terrorist investigators, investigators have fanned out over New York City, going to beauty shops, home improvement stores and neighbourhoods Zazi frequented looking for possible accomplices. Meanwhile, the government issued national terrorism warnings for sports complexes, hotels and transit systems.
Prosecutors said they have yet to establish exactly when and where the Zazi attacks were supposed to take place. But Attorney General Eric Holder said in Washington, ``We believe any imminent threat arising from this case has been disrupted.' A law enforcement official told The Associated Press on Thursday that Zazi had associates in New York who were in on the plot.
Court papers say that during the summer, Zazi and three unidentified associates bought ``unusually large quantities' of hydrogen peroxide and acetone a flammable solvent found in nail-polish remover from beauty supply stores in the Denver area, products with names like Ion Sensitive Scalp Developer and Clairoxide.
The Afghan-born Zazi searched the Web site of a home improvement store in the New York City borough of Queens for another ingredient needed to make a compound called TATP (Triacetone Triperoxide), the explosives used in the London mass transit bombings that killed over 50 people, prosecutors said.
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