The Hunt for a Hidden Bomb Factory

Days after local police and federal agents busted up an alleged terror plot targeting public transportation in the New York area, law enforcement and counterterrorism officials still aren't sure if they have captured all of the suspects who might have been in on the plan. Contacted by NEWSWEEK, some officials say they believe U.S. agencies "successfully disrupted" the plot with the arrests last weekend of two men in Denver and one in Queens, New York. But other officials say that more suspects are being sought, and that urgent efforts are continuing to locate what investigators fear could be a bomb factory or an explosives stockpile. (Story continued below...)

Court documents made public over the weekend by federal authorities accused three men of making false statements to federal investigators when they were recently questioned about the alleged plot. Two of the men, Najibullah Zazi, a 24-year-old Afghan-born U.S. resident, and his father, Mohammed Wali Zazi, 53, live in Denver. The third man, 37-year-old Ahmad Wais Afzali, is an Afghan-born imam living in Queens. The elder Zazi has been released on bail; detention hearings for his son and Afzali are expected later this week. Lawyers for the suspects have said the men have done nothing wrong. Ron Kuby, a lawyer for Afzali, the Queens imam, said that his client had a good working relationship with NYPD officers in his neighborhood. Official papers say the NYPD considered the cleric a "source"; Kuby described him as a "community liaison."

The three were arrested following extensive search and surveillance operations that the Feds say resulted in the seizure of incriminating evidence. This includes nine pages of handwritten notes stored on a computer owned by the younger Zazi. Court documents say the scanned notes "contain formulations and instructions regarding the manufacture and handling of initiating explosives, main explosives charges, explosives detonators and components of a fuzing system."

The Feds say that although they believe the notes are in the younger Zazi's handwriting, he claimed he had never seen them before. The Feds say that he had traveled from Newark to Peshawar, Pakistan—a center of militant activity—in August last year and that he was recorded reentering the United States at JFK airport last January. The court documents say that Zazi told the Feds that during his trip to Pakistan, he had "attended courses at an Al Qaeda training facility," where he "received instruction from Al Qaeda operatives on subjects such as weapons and explosives." Zazi has denied that he has any connection to Al Qaeda and says he was in Pakistan only to visit his wife.

Counterterrorism officials familiar with intelligence reports related to the investigation say that investigators can't link the alleged U.S. plot to Al Qaeda's core leaders, such as Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri. The officials said it's more likely the camp where Zazi allegedly trained was operated by Al Qaeda supporters or affiliates, such as Pakistan-based militant factions connected to the territorial rivalry between Pakistan and India in the disputed border region of Kashmir.