NEW YORK – A former airport shuttle driver accused of buying beauty supplies to make bombs for an ****** on New York City subways pleaded guilty Monday, admitting he agreed to conduct an al-Qaida-led "martyrdom operation" because of U.S. involvement in his native Afghanistan.
Najibullah Zazi told a judge the ****** network recruited him to be a suicide bomber in New York, where he went to high school and once worked a coffee cart just blocks from the World Trade Center site.
"I would sacrifice myself to bring attention to what the U.S. military was doing to civilians in Afghanistan," Zazi said in court.
The Associated Press learned earlier this month that the jailed Zazi had recently volunteered information about the bomb plot in the first step toward a plea deal. His cooperation suggests prosecutors hope to expand the case and bring charges against other suspects in one of the most serious terrorism threats in the U.S. since Sept. 11, 2001.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the ****** investigation is ongoing.
Zazi, 25, pleaded guilty to conspiring to use weapons of mass destruction, conspiring to commit ****** in a foreign country and providing material support for a terrorist organization. He faces a life prison sentence without parole at a sentencing in June.
The bombings "could have been devastating," Attorney General Eric Holder said in Washington. "This attempted ****** on our homeland was real, it was in motion, and it would have been deadly."
Zazi said in court he traveled to Pakistan in 2008 to join the Taliban and fight against the U.S. military but was recruited by the terrorist network in Peshewar and went into a training camp in Warziristan, a region of Pakistan where al-Qaida is known to operate.
Zazi said he received weapons training at the camp and learned about explosives. He also said in court that he had been in contact with al-Qaida operatives while in Pakistan, but he did not identify them.
"During the training, al-Qaida leaders asked us to return to the United States and conduct martyrdom operation," he said. "We agreed to this plan."
