Declassified Untold Stories of American Spies_1of8_Tracking Terror The 9 11 Subway Plot
Transcript
00:009-11 changed New York.
00:249-11, it became our mission to stop terrorism from happening.
00:29Fast forward eight years later, it's the anniversary of 9-11.
00:34There was an Al Qaeda-trained terror operative coming to New
00:38York to blow up the subways.
00:40This was as real as it got.
00:44And our job was to stop it.
00:48As a former FBI agent and chairman of the House
00:51Intelligence Committee, I had oversight of all 16 of our
00:54nation's intelligence agencies.
00:56My name is Mike Rogers.
01:00I had access to classified information gathered by our
01:03operatives, people who risked everything for the United
01:06States and our families.
01:08You don't know their faces or their names.
01:11You don't know the real stories from the people who
01:13lived the fear and the pressure until now.
01:219-11 was a wake-up call to the United States that we're
01:38vulnerable to terrorist attacks.
01:41It was also a wake-up call that our law enforcement
01:46intelligence community had to work together in the future.
01:50After 9-11, what you didn't have is the connective tissue
01:54of information between law enforcement and intelligence
01:57community assets.
01:59And the consequence is you're not seeing what's going on
02:02inside the country, and it's not easy to connect that to
02:05outside the country.
02:06And that was noted in the 9-11 commission report.
02:11There's been a lot of lessons learned after 9-11.
02:15A lot better sharing of information and intelligence,
02:19communication lines being more open, walls coming down.
02:24We're going to do whatever we can to stop terrorism.
02:27That is our goal.
02:28The metadata program and the 702 program were enacted to
02:33protect this country from the attacks that we saw in 9-11.
02:36Today, I'm pleased to sign landmark legislation that is
02:38vital to the security of our people.
02:42The bill will allow our intelligence professionals to
02:44quickly and effectively monitor the communications of
02:46terrorists abroad while respecting the liberties of
02:49Americans here at home.
02:55So 702 authorizes the NSA to go after certain forms of
03:00communication, in this case terrorist communications, that
03:03are coming from outside the country to inside the country.
03:08And the metadata collection program is
03:11information about information.
03:13And what that is in this case is the phone number, the
03:16to number, and the from number, the date, time, group
03:19of the call, and the duration of the call.
03:22That's all that is in the metadata database.
03:26There's no conversations.
03:27There's nothing about your communication or mine.
03:32Once a number is confirmed to be associated with a known
03:35terrorist group, NSA is authorized to look in that
03:38database to see who is that individual communicating with
03:42inside the US.
03:44People assume the metadata program has the
03:46content of phone calls.
03:49It doesn't.
03:53Because they don't understand.
03:56It's sensationalized and inflamed, not informed.
03:59There is no team of people just reading random emails or
04:04listening to random phone calls of normal citizens going
04:08about their business.
04:09There is no such thing.
04:15Yes, I think both 702 and the metadata
04:18program would have stopped it.
04:24In 2009, NSA was tracking an email address in Pakistan that
04:29belonged to Sana Pakhtana at yahoo.com.
04:34This individual, Sana Pakhtana, was associated
04:36with Rashid Ralph.
04:39Rashid Ralph was a known al-Qaeda operative.
04:43He was one of the conspirators in the attack on the aircraft
04:49coming out of Great Britain in 2006.
04:54So Rashid Ralph and this Sana Pakhtana's communicating.
04:58And then on 6 September 2009, NSA intercepted a message from
05:04Sana Pakhtana communicating with someone
05:06inside the United States.
05:09Under the 702 certification process, we were authorized to
05:13get the content of that email.
05:17And when we read it, it had code words in it that are
05:20indicative of a terrorist act.
05:22And it had a phone number.
05:24What it didn't say is who is the guy inside the United
05:27States, where does he live, and what's he up to.
05:30So we would take that and say, this is important.
05:34So we gave that email to the FBI.
05:40The first email that came across was from that address
05:46to a Yahoo account, njbzaz at yahoo.com.
05:51And then there were three emails from njbzaz at yahoo.com
05:57saying, please get in touch with me right away.
06:00I need the formula.
06:03The marriage is ready for flour and oil.
06:07The term marriage is a term that we all know and
06:11understand to mean attack.
06:14The other problem is that these emails are occurring just days
06:18before the anniversary of 9-11.
06:21Everybody was concerned that we had a major
06:24problem on our hands.
06:26The FBI takes that email, creates a national security
06:29letter, goes out to the internet service provider to
06:32find out who is this person, what's his name, gets
06:35information back that says, this is Najibullah Zazi, and
06:38the phone number is Najibullah Zazi.
06:41And we were able to identify an address through the carrier
06:44to an apartment in Aurora, Colorado.
06:51Once Zazi was identified through the emails, we were
06:55trying to scramble to figure out everything that we could
07:01possibly find out about Najibullah Zazi.
07:06We had our Joint Terrorism Task Force working together as a team.
07:10The Joint Terrorism Task Force involves agencies from the area,
07:15state, federal, and local law enforcement agencies working
07:18under one roof.
07:19And so almost immediately, we're able to set up 24-7
07:23surveillance on that apartment.
07:28On September 9th at about 6am, Najibullah Zazi leaves the
07:33apartment.
07:34He goes over to a car rental company and rents a vehicle.
07:39It was a red Chevy Impala.
07:42Then we see him getting into the car and driving in an
07:46eastbound direction out of the city of Denver.
07:50He was on the move, going at a very, very high rate of speed.
07:54This thing is a day to a day and a half old.
07:57And there was a lot of pressure because nobody knew what was
08:01going on.
08:02I mean, is this a person that's fleeing the scene?
08:05Is he attempting to get out of town before this thing occurs?
08:09Is he going to an area where the attack is going to take place?
08:12We just didn't know.
08:15So we utilize our partnership with Colorado State Patrol.
08:17So they have a trooper pull him over for speeding.
08:20And, you know, the trooper goes up, looks in the car,
08:24talks to him.
08:26The trooper was asking him questions about,
08:29where are you going, where are you headed?
08:31And Najibullah just basically indicates,
08:33I'm on my way to New York City.
08:35I own a coffee cart business and there's a problem with the
08:38individual who's running it and I need to get there to figure it
08:41out and to make it right.
08:43At that point, he's allowed to leave because what do we have
08:48under which to arrest him on?
08:50There was nothing.
08:51So you're at a point where you have to allow things to play out
08:55so that you can figure out exactly what's going on.
08:59But a car moving at a high rate of speed toward New York City
09:03near the anniversary of the 9-11 attacks,
09:06that does not sit well with anyone,
09:09but particularly the New York field office.
09:16So it's September 9th, 2009.
09:18I'm sitting at my desk, reading emails, looking through papers.
09:22I get a call from one of my counterparts at FBI.
09:25And he says, do you know the name Najibullah Zazi?
09:28And I say to him, nope, never heard of him.
09:32He says, well, literally he's coming at you at 90 miles an
09:35hour, potentially to detonate a bomb.
09:46On September 8th, 2009, I had never heard the name
09:50Najibullah Zazi.
09:52By September 9th, 2009, I knew he was a terrorist on the way
09:57to New York, likely to detonate a bomb.
10:02I was actually an assistant special agent in charge
10:05with the New York Joint Terrorism Task Force.
10:08Don Borrelli was the other assistant special agent
10:10in charge.
10:11And Don comes up to me.
10:13He says, NSA got information through their technical means
10:17that this individual, Zazi, was communicating with a known
10:22al-Qaeda email address about making a bomb and was basically
10:27coming at us at a fast rate of speed to commit an act of
10:30terrorism on the anniversary of 9-11.
10:32And I'm like, what?
10:34You know, I wasn't expecting that.
10:37There is a huge sense of responsibility on your
10:40shoulders that it cannot happen to New York.
10:43It cannot happen again.
10:45My role in New York was to try to take that information
10:48coming from the NSA and Eric and his team in Denver
10:52and then come up with a plan to deal with the threat to New York.
10:57For me, it was a pressure cooker situation.
11:01By the time he started driving to New York,
11:03it was about 48 hours since he had initially
11:06came to our attention.
11:07So this was a breakneck pace that we were operating
11:12Especially given the fact that we were two days away
11:15from the anniversary of 9-11.
11:17And by the way, we also have our surveillance vehicles
11:20following him the entire way.
11:22So from Denver, across the country,
11:25we have surveillance in the sky.
11:27We're doing everything we can to make sure we know
11:29where this guy is.
11:32While Najibullah was on his road trip,
11:34we would continue our investigation.
11:36We still knew very little about Najibullah.
11:40We still knew very little about him,
11:43but we started to accumulate information.
11:45We started to look at his immigration records.
11:48We learned that Najibullah was born
11:51in the Northwest Frontier region of Pakistan.
11:55Then Najibullah and his family came to the United States
11:58in 1999 when he was 11 and lived in Flushing, Queens.
12:03From there, you build on what you know about these people.
12:07Anybody that touched Najibullah Zazie,
12:10we assume was radioactive.
12:12They were a potential threat.
12:14Essentially, the NSA part was to use the metadata program
12:20and determine who else in the U.S.
12:22Zazie is communicating with to help the FBI understand
12:26who are the key targets that they have to go after.
12:29Two of the key figures in this investigation
12:32involved Zerreen Ahmadzai and Adesman Dunjanin.
12:36Two of his very close friends that he met in high school.
12:40They went to the mosque together,
12:42and they got jobs in New York.
12:46Zazie had the coffee cart.
12:48Zerreen was driving a cab, and Ades was a doorman.
12:53And they continued to hang out.
12:55They remained friends.
12:57Looking at the flight manifest,
13:00we concluded that in August of 2008,
13:03before he came to Colorado,
13:05Najibullah had traveled with Ades and Zerreen
13:08to the Fatah region of Pakistan,
13:12the federally administered tribal areas of Pakistan.
13:15And we thought, at the time,
13:17he'd gone to a terrorist training camp
13:20to receive terrorist training, bomb-making.
13:24These are all the real critical pieces of information
13:27that we needed to know the magnitude of this threat.
13:31And this has gone from highly probable to an emergency case.
13:37You join the FBI because you want to get in the fight,
13:40you want to take bad guys off the street,
13:42you want to capture terrorists.
13:44I never had anything like this.
13:46This seemed to be a real full-blown,
13:48tier-one, trained, bomb-making guy
13:51with potentially a bomb in the trunk of his car
13:54coming into my territory
13:56with dangerous counterparts here in New York to kill people.
14:00The adrenaline just starts going through the roof.
14:03Now it's the day before 9-11.
14:05So we start trying to game plan,
14:07how is this guy going to make it into New York?
14:10And so what they did was they set up individuals
14:14at all entry points into New York City.
14:17The great thing about working with the Joint Terrorism Task Force
14:20is that you have NYPD, you have the Port Authority.
14:22So we're talking with the Port Authority cops
14:24as to what they've got to do at each of these spots.
14:27We cannot let this guy get into Manhattan with a bomb in his car.
14:31So we need to do a vehicle stop,
14:34and we need to try to do it in such a manner
14:37to not overly raise his suspicion.
14:40So he's coming up the Jersey Turnpike,
14:42and we've got the surveillance team calling it out.
14:45Where is he?
14:47We start at the outer bridge crossing.
14:49He doesn't take that.
14:51And then he goes up to the Gothel's Bridge, and he doesn't get off.
14:53Then he goes to the Holland Tunnel, and he doesn't get off.
14:56And then he goes to the Lincoln Tunnel, and he doesn't get off.
14:58Well, the only place he can go now if he's coming to New York
15:01is the George Washington Bridge.
15:03I think it's 15 minutes from the last tunnel
15:07to when he got to the GW Bridge.
15:09So in 15 minutes, we set up a game plan,
15:11which is we're going to set up a roadblock
15:14where we stop cars, and it can be for drugs,
15:17it can be for D.W.E.
15:19You know, these checkpoints are done all the time.
15:21You always worry about the bad guy
15:24knowing that you're watching him.
15:26But in this situation, threat to life was paramount.
15:31And while we weren't loving the idea of a car stop,
15:35we had really no choice.
15:37We can't let him just drive into Manhattan
15:39and potentially blow something up.
15:41The last thing you want to be is responsible
15:44for another smoking crater in your city.
15:47Najibullah is driving to the bridge.
15:50It looks like he's going to come into Manhattan
15:53via the George Washington Bridge.
15:55And we're at the day before 9-11.
15:57And so what we're really thinking about is,
15:59we cannot lose this guy.
16:01Zazie was the picture of an imminent threat.
16:05Travel records had indicated
16:07that he had been to Pakistan in 2008.
16:11Potentially that he'd attended terrorist training camps
16:14with Addis Madujanin and Zarin Ahmedzade,
16:18his two New York counterparts.
16:20But we just didn't know what they were up to.
16:23So we're going to set up a roadblock.
16:26We were going to have the officer who had a canine
16:30search the car to try to figure out
16:33if Najibullah had a body in the car.
16:37To try to figure out if Najibullah had a bomb
16:41or anything else dangerous in the car.
16:44So Najibullah is in one lane of traffic.
16:48You have resources following him,
16:51calling out what he's doing.
16:53Finally, somebody made the call
16:55to essentially shut the bridge down.
16:58And as Zazie's coming up, he's pulled over.
17:02But remember, we're doing this to other cars in the line.
17:05So we're doing this to make it look like
17:07he's just another car in the line.
17:10The Port Authority officer with the canine
17:13did a sweep of the car,
17:15including the dog smelling around the various places
17:18and nooks and crannies of the car.
17:20We let the dog go around. The dog does not sit.
17:23The dog did not detect a bomb.
17:25Even though he didn't have a bomb in the trunk of his car,
17:28we knew that he was dangerous.
17:31And knowing that you can build a bomb
17:34with things that are available in the open market,
17:37we thought it likely that he could get to New York
17:40and then build the bomb.
17:42Remember, the connection with Zazie was Rashid Rauf
17:46and their communications going back and forth.
17:49So he was talking to people who had made bombs.
17:52And so we firmly believe that the plot
17:56was still an imminent threat.
18:00There was a discussion at that time
18:03about whether or not we would allow him
18:05into New York City at all.
18:07New York just did not want to take the risk
18:10of something going wrong where we would have
18:13a very, very bad situation on our hands.
18:16Ultimately, the decision was made to allow him into the city
18:20to learn more about what his plan was,
18:23what he was up to, who he was going to go meet.
18:26In this case, we took risks.
18:28I mean, there was no way around it.
18:31If we went to Zazie and said,
18:33hey, Mr. Zazie, we know that you're going to commit
18:36an act of terrorism, and he goes home,
18:38we still now have to follow him and do everything
18:40that we are doing anyway probably for the rest of his life
18:44because we know that he's somebody
18:46who wants to commit an act of terrorism.
18:48So we can't let him be operational,
18:51but we can let him do operational things
18:54so that we can arrest him for those.
18:56So the show goes on.
18:59The surveillance continues with traffic and taxis and subways
19:05and everything else that goes in to try to follow somebody
19:10in the borough of Manhattan,
19:12which is not easy on a good day
19:15and even much more difficult when you think
19:18that the guy you're following is a terrorist.
19:21So they're following him through Manhattan, through the Bronx,
19:25and we follow him into Queens.
19:28Najibullah drives to the apartment
19:31of one of the other co-conspirators,
19:34Zarin Ahmedzai.
19:36And then together, the two of them
19:39go to the Muslim Center of New York.
19:42But we didn't know what they were up to
19:44and if they were meeting with people,
19:46if this was all part of the plot.
19:48Surveillance is watching to see if anybody else comes and goes.
19:52And by the way, we've got surveillance going on
19:55at another location.
19:57And then after a little bit of time,
20:00Najibullah takes Zarin back to his apartment,
20:03and then Najibullah continues on.
20:06He's going to various religious locations,
20:09and we really don't know what's going on.
20:15No.
20:16I don't think that they were overly religious.
20:20They were Muslim.
20:22But it's really not about that at all.
20:25There might have been religion that they could base the plot on
20:29because of injustices done to Muslims by the West.
20:33But I think there's a lot more to it than that.
20:36It's wanting to be part of something bigger.
20:38It's trying to find an identity.
20:40The way I look at it, and it's not the FBI,
20:43this is the way I look at it,
20:45is that they haven't fully enveloped the American Dream,
20:48or the American Dream hasn't fully enveloped them.
20:52They viewed themselves and they believed in their minds
20:54that they were failures in life.
20:56And I think that the Al-Qaeda members who talked to them
21:00and inspired them to conduct this attack
21:02knew that and capitalized on it.
21:04It's terrorism using whatever tools they can
21:07to inflict harm on us
21:09and to take misguided use like that to do it.
21:13And they don't necessarily have to be Islamic.
21:15They just want people to conduct attacks on their behalf.
21:20So the night of September 10th,
21:22Najibullah spends the night at a high school friend's house.
21:26Tomorrow is 9-11 anniversary.
21:28We didn't know what the target would be,
21:31when it would take place,
21:33who exactly was going to participate,
21:35how it was going to happen.
21:37But there was no doubt.
21:39Zazie, Zareen, and Hadith wanted to kill people,
21:43and we have to prepare for that.
21:45There was a lot at stake.
21:47Anytime that you're talking about terrorism,
21:49people could die,
21:51so you've got to be on your very best game.
21:54We've got to control this situation,
21:56and if we can't control it, then we've got to take it down
21:59because we cannot let these guys commit an act on 9-11.
22:09It's the anniversary of 9-11.
22:11We know that Najibullah Zazie, Zareen Abidze,
22:14and Hadith Mdujani want to commit an act of terrorism.
22:17Our mission is to not let that happen.
22:21So we had physical surveillance on him.
22:24We were following these individuals everywhere.
22:27The morning of September 11th,
22:29we're listening, we're watching,
22:31and Najibullah leaves the residence where he's staying.
22:36Zazie has his rented car on a street in Queens, parked,
22:41leaves the car there, and Zazie goes on his way.
22:44We follow him.
22:46He walks to a subway and takes a subway into Manhattan.
22:57Based on all of the information that we had
23:01via multiple sources of information, including...
23:06Sensitive sources.
23:09We were confident that he wasn't wearing a suicide vest,
23:12or we would not have let him on the subway.
23:14We would have stopped it right there.
23:16Period.
23:18Agents that were following him saw Najibullah
23:22go to the financial district
23:24and visit the individual who was running his coffee cart.
23:28The FBI's got surveillance all over him,
23:31but he's not doing anything illegal.
23:33This is a guy who's looking behind his back.
23:35He's trying to see, you know, is he being followed?
23:37Are people looking at him?
23:39We knew that he was suspicious, obviously.
23:41He'd been pulled over a couple different times.
23:43So we didn't know for sure if the plot was still active,
23:48but I believe at that time he was essentially killing time,
23:52trying to look innocent,
23:54and Addis and Zarin were still under surveillance.
23:58So now we've got the opportunity to search the car.
24:04NYPD comes in, and they impound the car.
24:08We get it over to a hanger that's not being used.
24:12And so we can go in there and covertly,
24:15out of the view of everyone, search his car.
24:18And, I mean, when I say search his car,
24:20this was a CSI moment.
24:24We have our evidence response team.
24:26They come in, and they take photos
24:28of where the dirt is in the car.
24:30They take photos of where cups are in the car.
24:32So when we pull the stuff out of the car,
24:34when we're done, it goes into the car the exact same way.
24:38We were looking for anything that can make a bomb
24:41or anything that can indicate that a bomb was made.
24:44So we're looking for chemicals.
24:46We're looking for documentation.
24:50Ultimately, searching that car
24:52led to getting his laptop computer.
24:56And our computer forensics team
24:58basically makes a copy of the computer.
25:00And the supervisor says,
25:02you need to see this.
25:05And I'm thinking, oh, Jesus.
25:08The computer forensic people
25:10found a document on the computer.
25:13This document is like my organic chemistry lab notes.
25:17It's got drawings of beakers
25:20and distillation tubes and chemical formulas.
25:24This is one of those oh, shit moments.
25:27But it was a good oh, shit moment
25:29because now we have something.
25:33So I call FBI headquarters
25:36and tell them I need the chief chemist.
25:40They get the chemist on the phone,
25:43and I start relaying to him
25:45what I'm seeing on this document.
25:48And within a minute, the chemist tells me,
25:50this is how you make TATP.
25:53TATP is triacetone triperoxide.
25:57It's a very, very powerful explosive
25:59that can be made with ingredients
26:01that are easily purchased.
26:03It's the explosive material
26:05used in suicide vests and IEDs.
26:09It's tools of the trade for terrorists.
26:13We strongly believed before we found that document
26:16that he was the real deal.
26:18This just cemented everything that we knew.
26:21But it is not illegal to have bombing notes.
26:24So at this point, all we've got
26:26is a guy who came to New York,
26:28some NSA analytics,
26:30and the bomb-making note.
26:32Could we arrest him? Maybe.
26:34Could we convict him?
26:36I can defend against that.
26:38So we're in a conference call with our headquarters.
26:41We're strategizing about how to go forward,
26:44and somebody says, we just got some bad news.
26:47Somebody from the team
26:49had a source of information that was an imam
26:53that actually knew Najibullah Zazi,
26:56and during the investigation,
26:58the imam was contacted.
27:00We were trying to get as much information as we can.
27:03Why is Najibullah in town? What's he doing?
27:05And as it turned out,
27:07the imam was not to be trusted
27:10because after talking to our team,
27:13the imam contacted Najibullah
27:15and basically warned him
27:17that he was under investigation by the FBI.
27:21At this point, Zazi knows for a fact
27:24the FBI was after him, so he called off his plan.
27:29So the next day, he jumps on a plane
27:33and heads back on the 12th to Denver.
27:36He may have abandoned the September 11 plot,
27:41but he's still a dangerous guy.
27:44So surveillance continues to Denver,
27:47and then we hand him off
27:49to Eric and the other Denver people.
27:52We have to make sure
27:54that he doesn't disappear into the wind
27:56or attack someplace else,
27:58and so we had the surveillance up
28:01because we just didn't have enough at that point
28:04to charge him with substantial crimes.
28:08Meanwhile in New York, we didn't know
28:10if the plot was going to continue
28:13via Addis and Zarin.
28:16So we decided to do raids on Zarin's house
28:18and Addis' house on September 14.
28:21We were hoping to find evidence of a bomb plot.
28:24So we get teams from all across the FBI,
28:27and then we also bring in more task force officers,
28:30NYPD, Port Authority.
28:32The teams go out, and they hit the locations.
28:36At both Zarin's house and Addis' house,
28:39we found computers,
28:41and during the searches of those computers,
28:43we did find al-Qaeda propaganda.
28:48Now, having the al-Qaeda propaganda on your computer
28:51is not illegal, but it works bad.
28:54By the end of the raids,
28:57it was in the news, what we were doing.
29:00The FBI agents and New York police
29:02launched a series of raids early Monday morning
29:04linked to an al-Qaeda terror suspect.
29:06The media quickly realized that Zazie
29:09was the common threat among all of these searches
29:12that were going on and did the legwork
29:14then to trace him back to Colorado.
29:16Media was camping outside on his lawn,
29:19knocking on his door.
29:21You have nothing to do with al-Qaeda?
29:23Of course not. I have nothing to do with al-Qaeda
29:26and any link or anything with al-Qaeda.
29:29With the media presence at his house,
29:32the pressure starts to build on him.
29:35And I remember our chief division counsel
29:37walked into the room, and he sat down,
29:39and he said, you're never going to believe this,
29:41but I just got a call from Najibullah's attorney.
29:43They want to come in and talk.
29:45We didn't see that coming.
29:53It was about 2 p.m. on September 16th
29:55when Najibullah came in with his attorney
29:57to talk to us for the very first time.
29:59He wanted to clear things up.
30:01He wanted to talk about what happened.
30:03Is it Najib or Najibullah?
30:05How would you like to be called?
30:06Yeah, Najibullah.
30:07Najibullah? Okay.
30:09Last name is Zazie.
30:10Okay.
30:11So in the room, there were five individuals,
30:13Najibullah, Najibullah's attorney,
30:16with his associate, myself,
30:18and another interviewing agent.
30:20But little did he know, on the very next door,
30:22there were hundreds of people running leads,
30:25doing whatever they could in the background
30:27while I sat and talked to him.
30:35He started to tell us,
30:38this is a misunderstanding.
30:40I don't know why all this suspicion is on me.
30:42I haven't done anything wrong.
30:44So I indicate to him that
30:47we found your computer.
30:50And on that computer,
30:52we found what looks like bomb-making notes.
30:55Do you know anything about this?
30:57And I can see him backpedaling a little bit.
31:01How am I going to explain that away?
31:04I did make a mistake in one point.
31:07I downloaded one of the books.
31:09It was a long time ago.
31:11As soon as I see it, it was, and I said,
31:13this is not something that I need to see,
31:15or it has to be in my computer right away.
31:17I deleted it.
31:18He said, I found them online, and they're in a book.
31:21And we came back, and we said, that's your handwriting.
31:23Then the story changes again.
31:25Well, I actually took notes,
31:27but then I realized that what I was doing could be a problem,
31:29so I tried to get rid of them.
31:31So I said, in other words, you wanted to distance yourself
31:33from the notes that you yourself took,
31:35but yet you scan them.
31:37Why would you do that if you were trying to distance yourself
31:39from these notes?
31:41It doesn't make any sense.
31:43I would have liked to have been there
31:46to see the look on his face.
31:48I believe that was the point in Najibullah's mind
31:52where he said, they got me.
31:57So the proffer agreement was offered to Najibullah,
31:59and that's essentially an agreement that he signs
32:02to be completely honest with us.
32:05But then none of his statements can be used against him,
32:08but they could be used for purposes of following up
32:11on various other leads that we had.
32:14So he would come back again the next day
32:17and the day after that.
32:19And I asked him about his trip to Pakistan.
32:23He had indicated that he was going to see his family,
32:26but then he came in contact with an individual over there
32:31who was an al-Qaeda figure.
32:33That person talked to him about conducting an attack
32:37here on U.S. soil,
32:39and it interested Najibullah very much.
32:42Why would he tell you that?
32:44I think he realized I was taking an interest
32:47into what he had to say.
32:49I don't think throughout his life
32:51that anybody really listened to him about anything.
32:54And so according to Najibullah, in August of 2008,
32:58he attended the al-Qaeda training camp.
33:02The camp was about two weeks,
33:05and it was learning hand-to-hand combat,
33:09small arms fire.
33:12And part of that training also involved
33:15an explosives-related course on TATP.
33:22TATP is a extremely volatile explosive material.
33:28The main ingredient being hydrogen peroxide,
33:32which can be purchased in a beauty supply store.
33:35And we were able to obtain video surveillance of him
33:38from 2009, walking around in the beauty supply warehouse,
33:42pushing a cart around with up to 12 bottles
33:45of very, very highly concentrated hydrogen peroxide product.
33:50He had actually rented a hotel and gone there
33:53and done the chemical combination,
33:55and a couple times it didn't work.
33:57And then it did work on the final time.
33:59After it worked is when he started traveling to New York.
34:03He went from a normal guy
34:05to a full-blown, real-life terrorist
34:09with the training and the tools and the intent
34:12to kill people, to kill his neighbors,
34:14to kill fellow citizens.
34:17Najibullah talked to me relatively stress-free
34:21about his attending the training camps,
34:24what he was going to do.
34:26But remember, we couldn't use his statements against him.
34:30But we knew that we could use any sorts of remnants
34:34or evidence that were found.
34:36And so while we're talking, a team was deployed
34:40to go and search that hotel room up and down and thoroughly.
34:46We were looking for certain materials
34:48that would actually, as he was cooking down,
34:51materials would go up into the vent.
34:54And as you swab the vent,
34:55some of those materials still existed in the vent.
34:58And so all of that was being evaluated
35:01to make the overall case.
35:05But we knew about his friends Zarin and Adiz.
35:09And as I led him down the path
35:12of talking to me about their potential involvement,
35:16he was very uncomfortable about doing that.
35:20It was almost like they were non-existent
35:22in his telling of the story.
35:24And so it was at that point
35:25that we called off the interview for the day.
35:28And the following morning,
35:30his attorney called and said,
35:32we are done, we're not talking anymore.
35:35And so by that evening,
35:37we were en route to his house to arrest him.
35:40Breaking news out of Aurora, Colorado.
35:42We are just learning that U.S. resident Najibullah Zazi
35:46has been arrested just moments ago
35:48by the federal authorities.
35:52Based on what we had accumulated,
35:54formal charges came from the Eastern District in New York.
35:57These charges consisted of weapons of mass destruction,
36:01preparing for use of a WMD.
36:04I was happy to see Najibullah arrested,
36:08but Adiz and Zarin were still under investigation
36:12here in New York.
36:13They are part of the conspiracy.
36:15We know that they wanted to beat terrorists.
36:18So the case is not over.
36:20Zazi gets arrested in Denver on the 19th of September.
36:29But in New York, we still have a case.
36:31We were not ready to arrest Adiz,
36:34and we were not ready to arrest Zarin.
36:36We needed more evidence.
36:38We wanted to see if they would slip up.
36:40Well, we waited three months or four months,
36:42and they did not.
36:43So we were going to get some information from Adiz.
36:47We wanted to get his passport
36:49because we had seen his travel manifest,
36:51but we were afraid that we hadn't gotten everything.
36:53And so we wanted to see the stamps,
36:55and we got subpoenas.
36:56So on January 7th,
36:58we sent two agents over to Adiz's house
37:01to get the passport.
37:02They give him the subpoena.
37:04Adiz is actually fairly conversational.
37:07They go get the passport,
37:08and the agents go on their way.
37:10But when he saw the subpoena,
37:13it said that he was being investigated for terrorism,
37:16and it freaked him out.
37:17Minutes later,
37:18Adiz came running out of the house,
37:20jumped in the car,
37:21and is racing away.
37:23That's not a good sign.
37:25He's going like a bat out of hell.
37:27The surveillance team is telling us
37:28that he's on the Whitestone Expressway.
37:30He calls into 911.
37:32Police operator 1673.
37:34This is Adiz.
37:39He goes,
37:40My name is Adiz.
37:41My name is Adiz.
37:42I love death more than you love life.
37:44Hello, do you need the police?
37:45Fire Department or the ambulance?
37:49Hello?
37:51Adiz believes that
37:53he's going to commit an act of jihad at this point.
37:56He's going to take out as many people as he can
37:59with his car.
38:01He's driving in one direction.
38:03Going in the same direction
38:04is a car in front of him.
38:06He goes and rams the car
38:08at 65 miles an hour,
38:10hitting the car,
38:11going 55 miles an hour.
38:13Thankfully, he doesn't understand physics.
38:15Instead of the big explosion,
38:16which is what he's hoping for,
38:18he gets a fender bender.
38:20Adiz gets out of the car
38:22and starts running for the median.
38:24There happens to be an off-duty
38:25Suffolk County police officer behind him.
38:27The Suffolk cop gets out of the car
38:29and basically yells to him,
38:30Hey, buddy, you were involved in an accident.
38:32Get back over here.
38:34Adiz comes back to the car.
38:36The cop goes,
38:37Hey, it was a fender bender.
38:38Why are you running?
38:39Adiz said,
38:40The FBI wants me for terrorism.
38:43And points behind him.
38:45The surveillance teams are now running up
38:47to where Adiz is.
38:48The cop sees this,
38:50pulls out his gun,
38:51and tells him to lay down.
38:55We bring him back,
38:57put him in a room.
38:58Agents go in
38:59and start to question him.
39:01He waves everything,
39:03and he starts to talk.
39:05And he tells us about Zazie.
39:08He tells us about Zareen.
39:10He tells us about the terrorist training camps
39:12when they were in Pakistan.
39:14He tells us that they wanted to blow up the subway.
39:17The plan with Al-Qaeda was that
39:19they were going to be suicide bombers.
39:22Wear the backpacks,
39:23go into the subway,
39:24blow them up,
39:25three different locations.
39:29Because he was proud of it.
39:32He was bragging to us.
39:35This attack
39:37could have very likely gone undetected.
39:39We were days, if not hours,
39:41away from this thing happening.
39:48At this point,
39:49because of everything Adiz gave us,
39:51we placed him under arrest.
39:52At or around the same time,
39:54they would arrest Zareen Ahmadzai.
39:56He was driving in his cab.
39:57They pulled him out of his cab,
39:58placed him under arrest as well.
40:00That was the culmination of a lot of hard work,
40:03but it's also the beginning of another chapter,
40:06and that is preparing a case for trial.
40:10Najibullah Zazi and Zareen Ahmadzai
40:13would eventually plead guilty.
40:15Well, Adiz Medunjanid would take his case to trial
40:19and would be convicted.
40:20When we were coming to trial,
40:21we actually made a bomb
40:23according to Zazi's recipe.
40:28It had the force to blow up a subway car.
40:31This was one of the most serious terrorist threats
40:33for our nation since September the 11th, 2001,
40:36and were it not for the combined efforts
40:38of the law enforcement and intelligence communities,
40:41it could have been devastating.
40:45The fallout of this would have been New York shattering,
40:49if not America shattering.
40:51The way we work together with the intelligence community,
40:54with local law enforcement,
40:56I don't know how it can work better in a case like this.
40:59This was exemplary.
41:02This wasn't the first threat after 9-11.
41:05There were a series of terrorist-related activities
41:09that FBI, NSA, and CIA had stopped.
41:13Some of these cases, like this one,
41:15we share because it was important
41:17for the American people to know
41:19that what the country was doing
41:21was to keep them safe, not to spy on them.
41:24And I believe that if it were not for the 702 program,
41:29that this attack would have happened.
41:31Without the receipt of those initial e-mails,
41:35there would have been a very, very devastating attack
41:38that would have occurred in New York City.
41:41I'm 100% certain of that.
41:44The Zazie case was the highlight of my FBI career.
41:48There's not a lot of cases where you go to bed at night and go,
41:52we saved a lot of lives today.
41:54And it's a pretty rewarding feeling to be able to say that.
42:01ZAZIE