Feds: Al-Qaida leaders ordered NYC suicide bombing

Spouting a Sept. 11-linked verse from the Quran and condemning Zionists, Queens taxi driver Zarein Ahmedzay Friday pleaded guilty to planning suicide bombings on New York City subways last fall - but said he was happy he failed.

"I strongly urge the American people to stop supporting the war against Islam, it would be in their own interest," Ahmedzay, 25, told a Brooklyn federal magistrate. "I am thankful for myself that I did not do anything to harm anyone, but I am fearful someone else might do the same thing."

Ahmedzay disclosed the plot, hatched when he was recruited by al-Qaida on a visit to Pakistan with Flushing High School friend Najibullah Zazi in 2008. The plan originally focused on hitting "well-known structures to inflict maximum casualties." But they settled on subway attacks because Zazi couldn't get enough explosives, he said.

Although Ahmedzay said he had second thoughts about participating in the plot, he ignored advice from U.S. Magistrate Steven Gold to stick to the facts and used the plea hearing to denounce Zionists' control of the United States and to read aloud an ominous Quran passage he identified as Chapter 9:111.

"Verily, Allah has purchased from the believers their lives and their wealth for the price of paradise. They fight in the way of Allah. They kill and get killed. It is a promise binding on him in truth in the Torah, the Gospel and the Koran."

Ahmedzay faces multiple life sentences for two counts of conspiracy and providing material support to al-Qaida.

Zazi pleaded guilty in February and is cooperating. A third classmate, Adis Medunjanin, who Ahmedzay did not name in his plea, allegedly accompanied them to Pakistan and planned to participate. He still faces charges.

Ahmedzay said he traveled to Pakistan to fight in Afghanistan against the United States and the government of Hamid Karzai to "establish the justice of Allah." Prosecutors for the first time named the two al-Qaida leaders who recruited the men - identifying them as Saleh al Somali and Rashid Rauf. Both are now dead, according to news reports.

At a training facility in the Waziristan region of western Pakistan, al-Qaida leaders convinced the New Yorkers they could be more "useful" waging jihad at home, Ahmedzay said, and that his work as a taxi driver would be helpful because of his familiarity with the city.

He agreed, Ahmedzay said, but changed his mind when he went to visit family in Afghanistan, where he has a wife and two children. He still had doubts when he returned to New York in January 2009, Ahmedzay said, but a few months later decided to go ahead.

The bombings were scheduled for Ramadan, the holy period beginning in late August, but interrupted when the plotters realized the FBI was watching.

Ahmedzay never explained his doubts, but his lawyer said questions about the ethics of killing people were involved.

"When he says he's thankful that he did not harm people, I think he meant that," lawyer Michael Marinaccio said.