Zazi’s guilty plea is hope that U.S. closer to thwarting pending terror plot

By Joshua Wilwohl / josh@theklaxon.com / 02.22.2010

Updated on: 02.22.10 at 7:38 pm

NYPD

Najibullah Zazi pleaded guilty Monday in federal court in Brooklyn, N.Y., to terrorism-related charges, including use of weapons of mass destruction. Zazi’s arrest and plea deal is a triumph to homeland security, but it’s also a realization: There’s more to come.

The 25-year-old stated in court he was trained by al-Qaeda in Pakistan to explode a “martyrdom” bomb within the New York City subway system. He refused, however, to inform the court of specific locations, but said that attack was in retaliation for the U.S. military’s actions against civilians in Afghanistan.

When Zazi was arrested in Denver in September 2009, his only deal was to cooperate with authorities. It looks like this is happening. What he’s informing officials, of course, is confidential, but it’s no doubt essential—or Monday’s proceedings would not have occurred.

Security in New York City has been elevated lately with National Guard patrols seen throughout mass transit locations and Critical Response Vehicles showing force in Manhattan from Canal Street up Sixth Avenue.

U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Sunday that homegrown extremism, turned terrorism is now the biggest concern of United States officials.

“What really is it that draws a young person being raised in the United States to want to go and be at a camp in Yemen and then come back to the United States with the idea of committing harm within the United States?” Napolitano said, according to The Washington Post. “Where in that person’s formulation is there an opportunity to break that cycle?”

Zazi is a prime example. Reports indicate he lived in the U.S. since he was 14 and then allegedly traveled to Afghanistan to join the Taliban and soon to be recruited in 2008 by al-Qaeda to make bombs.

The country currently faces an elevated threat and “certainty of attack” by July, according to CIA chief Leon Panetta, not elaborating on any specific details.

Zazi’s plea deal could mean the U.S. is one step closer to thwarting this potential attack, if the information he provided is credible. It will also take Napolitano’s word of internal terror to come to fruition—as it seems the rise in homegrown terrorism is rapidly increasing (take the five Virginia-area men arrested in Pakistan in December).

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said in a press conference Monday that “… (this) was a very serious plot against New York City, and fortunately, the great work by the FBI and the NYPD together stopped this plot. Let us just hope they stop the next one.”

It’s unfortunate, but in this case, only time will tell.