TRACES OF TERROR: THE INVESTIGATION; U.S. SAYS IT HALTED QAEDA PLOT TO USE RADIOACTIVE BOMB (original) (raw)
U.S.|TRACES OF TERROR: THE INVESTIGATION; U.S. SAYS IT HALTED QAEDA PLOT TO USE RADIOACTIVE BOMB
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TRACES OF TERROR: THE INVESTIGATION
- June 11, 2002
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June 11, 2002
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Section A, Page
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The Justice Department announced today that it had broken up a plot by Al Qaeda to detonate a radioactive bomb inside the United States by arresting an American citizen in the case.
''We have captured a known terrorist who was exploring a plan to build and explode a radiological dispersion device, or 'dirty bomb,' in the United States,'' Attorney General John Ashcroft said in a televised announcement from Moscow, where he was meeting with Russian official on unrelated matters.
Mr. Ashcroft identified the arrested man as Abdullah al-Muhajir, 31, a former Chicago gang member who American officials said was born Jose Padilla in Brooklyn and raised as a Roman Catholic but who converted to Islam and began using a new name.
Mr. Padilla has been in custody since May 8, when he was arrested on a sealed material witness warrant at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago as he arrived on a flight from Zurich.
Senior government officials said Mr. Padilla had discussed the bomb plot with top Qaeda leaders in Pakistan and Afghanistan, among them Abu Zubaydah, the Osama bin Laden lieutenant who was captured in Pakistan in March and later told United States officials about the plan. But they also said Mr. Padilla had not obtained the materials to make such a device.
Mr. Zubaydah, the most senior Qaeda leader in custody, told his American interrogators that several Qaeda members had come to him late last December with a proposal to acquire and detonate a radiological device, a so-called dirty bomb. Mr. Zubaydah did not identify Mr. Padilla by name, but provided enough information to allow the Central Intelligence Agency to check with other sources -- including documents seized in Afghanistan -- to narrow the search to Mr. Padilla, officials said.
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