Najibullah Zazi, pictured on 17 September 2009
Najibullah Zazi faces life in prison without parole
An Afghan-born Colorado airport bus driver has pleaded guilty to plotting to blow up New York’s subway system.
Najibullah Zazi told a federal court in the city that he had been planning what he called a “martyrdom operation”.
Zazi pleaded guilty to conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction, conspiracy to commit murder and providing material support to al-Qaeda.
The 25-year-old changed his plea from one of not guilty. He faces a sentence of life in prison without parole.
Prosecutors say Zazi bought beauty supplies and tried to use them to make homemade bombs in a Colorado hotel room.
Zazi said he had been trained by al-Qaeda on the Afghan-Pakistani border.
He had agreed to carry out the attack as a protest against American military operations in his homeland, Afghanistan, he said.
At the time of his arrest last September, investigators said that the imminent threat of an attack had been disrupted but that they would continue to examine a “wide range of leads”.
Another two suspects – Adis Medunjanin and Zasrein Ahmedzay – said to be associates of Mr Zazzi – were arrested over the plot last month.
Content such as this makes me personally so depressed, I’m sure it is really cleache to ask if we are able to all just get along, but how much more of this are we all going to put up with?