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Tuesday, June 11, 2002

"We have disrupted an unfolding terrorist plot to attack the United States by exploding a radioactive dirty bomb," Attorney General John Ashcroft said in a televised announcement from Moscow.

The man, Abdullah al Muhajir, 31, has been in U.S. custody for more than a month after being arrested at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport on May 8. He was also interested in plans to bomb hotel rooms and gas stations in the United States, Fox News reported Monday.

The CIA apparently had been aware of his movements for some time before his arrest. He had flown in from Pakistan after making a stop in an undisclosed location, officials said.

A "dirty bomb" is a conventional explosive wrapped with radioactive material. It is designed to scatter that material over a wide area.

FBI Director Robert Mueller said Monday that the conspiracy was in its early stages and that there was no evidence the man acquired a dirty bomb. Nor was there evidence that al-Qaeda had settled on a target.

"It was in the discussion stage," Mueller said. "It did not go much beyond the discussion stage."

Chicago Gang Leader, Prison Convert

Al Muhajir was born Jose Padilla in 1970. He is a former Chicago street gang member who served time in prison in the 1990s, converted to Islam and met with al-Qaeda leaders in 2001 before returning to the United States, Fox News reported.

Appearing with Mueller and Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson at a Justice Department news conference, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said there was no specific evidence that al Muhajir would have targeted the Washington area had the plot been carried out.

"It certainly wasn't at the point of having an initial target," Wolfowitz said. "He did have some knowledge of the Washington, D.C., area."

Officials later refused to say whether al Muhajir was carrying maps of the nation's capital when arrested.

'Enemy Combatant'

In a statement released from Moscow, where he is conferring with Russian law enforcement officials on terrorism matters, Ashcroft said the Justice Department and the Defense Department determined al Muhajir was "an enemy combatant."

That means he was transferred from Justice Department custody Sunday and is in the Naval Consolidated Brig in Charleston, S.C.

The Charleston brig is a level-two, medium-security prison, Army Lt. Col Rivers Johnson said. He was transferred there from the Federal Detention Center in the Southern District of New York.

There have been no formal charges lodged against al Muhajir, a senior official said on background Monday, but he can be held under U.S. law and Supreme Court precedent as an enemy combatant.

No terrorist in U.S. custody has been tried under a military commission, authorized earlier this year by executive order, at least not publicly.

Al Muhajir could not be tried under the commission structure, in any case, because President Bush's order limited it to non-citizen terrorists.

In his Moscow statement, Ashcroft said after serving time in a state prison in the early 1990s, Padilla started referring to himself as al Muhajir.

"He traveled to Afghanistan and Pakistan and on several occasions in 2001, he met with senior al-Qaeda officials," Ashcroft said.

"While in Afghanistan and Pakistan, al Muhajir trained with the enemy, including studying how to wire explosive devices and researching radiological dispersion devices. Al-Qaeda officials knew that as a U.S. citizen holding a valid U.S. passport, al Muhajir would be able to travel freely in the United States without drawing attention to himself."

The attorney general said U.S. officials were tracking the suspect when he flew into O'Hare on May 8 and was placed into custody.

The attorney general said the knowledge of the plot and al Muhajir's movements came "from multiple, independent and corroborating sources."

'Cooperative Work' of CIA and FBI

At the Justice Department, Mueller said the case "was the result of close, cooperative work" between the CIA and the FBI.

Both agencies have been buffeted lately by accusations they failed to cooperate, and thus failed to pick up important clues, before the devastating terrorist attacks Sept. 11.

After Monday's news conference, a senior Justice Department official said the suspect lived in Brooklyn, N.Y., until he was about five, before moving to Chicago.

Padilla was arrested on a handgun charge in Florida and convicted in 1991. It was after spending a year in a Florida prison that he began calling himself al Muhajir.

A senior Justice Department official said al Muhajir had been out of the country, principally in Afghanistan and Pakistan, since 1998.

Copyright 2002 by United Press International.

All rights reserved.

Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:

Al-Qaeda

Bush Administration

Homeland/Civil Defense

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