Al Qaeda In America: The Enemy Within

Khan--a "confessed AQ [al Qaeda] member" who was apparently captured in Pakistan, according to intelligence sources--traveled at least briefly to the United States, where he tried unsuccessfully to seek asylum. His family members, intelligence documents say, are longtime Baltimore residents and own gas stations in that city (a detail NEWSWEEK was able to confirm). KSM told interrogators that he and Khan discussed a plan to use a Karachi-based import-export business to smuggle explosives into the United States.

Khan looked for more help from people who might escape the notice of investigators. KSM told interrogators that a woman named Aafia Siddiqui, a U.S. visa holder who has lived in the United States for a decade, rented a post-office box to help Khan establish his U.S. identity. Siddiqui was supposed to support "other AQ operatives as they entered the United States," according to the Feds' description of the plot. Siddiqui's estranged husband, identified by informed sources as Mohammad Amjan Khan, had purchased body armor, night-vision goggles and a variety of military manuals to send to Pakistan. He apparently returned these items after being interviewed by the FBI. Both Siddiqui and Khan were described as "medical professionals." Siddiqui fled to Pakistan, where she was reportedly arrested.

KSM told his interrogators that he wanted "two or three African-American Muslim converts" to carry out his operation to blow up the gas stations. Majid Khan told the FBI that he had seen "two African Americans (identified as such by their American accents) during a 2000 meeting in Pakistan with KSM and other AQ operatives."

KSM had more diabolical plans for another of Khan's American relatives, a commercial truckdriver named Iyman Faris (a.k.a. Mohammad Rauf). The truckdriver is a naturalized U.S. citizen, a longtime resident of Columbus, Ohio. His ex-wife told friends that in hindsight she finds it disturbing that her husband, a devout Muslim, had long expressed an interest in learning how to fly. He spent hours, she said, reading magazines about ultralight aircraft, gliders with small engines that can be piloted almost anywhere. The order to study ultralight aircraft came directly from KSM, according to intelligence documents.

The Qaeda operations chief told interrogators that he had a specific assignment for the truckdriver. He wanted Faris to case the Brooklyn Bridge. KSM also instructed Faris to obtain "gas cutters" (presumably, metal-cutting torches) that could be used to cut the Brooklyn Bridge's suspension wires. And more: the truckdriver was assigned to obtain "torque tools" to bend railroad tracks, the better to send a passenger train hurtling off the rails. And still more: Faris recommended driving a small truck with explosives beneath a commercial airliner as it sat on the tarmac. A licensed truckdriver, he said, could easily penetrate airport security.

None of these plots ever came off. Faris has disappeared. No one was home when NEWSWEEK knocked on the door of his apartment in a run-down section of Columbus last week. But as recently as last month, public records show, he paid a $200 fine and got his driver's license restored after being arrested for speeding in Delaware County. (His license recently expired, say Ohio state officials; he has not tried to renew it.)