A former Chicago man who federal authorities allege had become part of an Al Qaeda terrorist plot to detonate a “dirty” radioactive bomb in the United States–possibly in Washington–was in U.S. military custody Monday following his arrest a month ago at O’Hare International Airport.
Jose Padilla, who was identified by law-enforcement and intelligence officials as a U.S. citizen, was detained May 8 as he completed a journey from Pakistan to Chicago, U.S. Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft said Monday. Padilla, who adopted the name Abdullah al Muhajir with his conversion to Islam in the late 1990s, was trained in Pakistan in the construction of bombs and was on his way to inspect possible targets for a terrorist attack in the U.S., officials allege.
“We have captured a known terrorist who was exploring a plan to build and explode a radiological dispersion device, or dirty bomb, in the United States,” Ashcroft said from Moscow, where he is on an official visit. It was the first public suggestion that Al Qaeda was in the process of deploying trained operatives to pursue a dirty bomb plot.
Dirty radioactive bombs are different from nuclear explosive devices. Rather than relying on the massive, destructive force of an atomic chain reaction, they would use the power of conventional explosives to disperse radioactive material gathered, for example, from hospitals or industrial waste. The purpose is to spread low-level radiation over a wide area.
“We know from multiple, independent and corroborating sources that Abdullah al Muhajir was closely associated with Al Qaeda and that as an Al Qaeda operative, he was involved in planning future terrorist attacks,” Ashcroft said.
Padilla’s arrest follows a wave of government warnings of possible terrorist attacks in the U.S. An intelligence source said that, besides radioactive dirty bombs, Padilla also intended to explore the prospects for placing conventional bombs in hotel rooms and gasoline stations.
FBI Director Robert Mueller said during a news conference that the bomb plot was only in the “discussion stage.” Paul Wolfowitz, deputy secretary of defense, said Padilla “indicated some knowledge of the Washington, D.C., area, but I want to emphasize again, there was not an actual plan.”
Justice officials said two of Padilla’s accomplices have been arrested by police in Pakistan.
Justice and intelligence sources said information about Padilla’s intentions came from Abu Zubaydah, a top aide to Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden. Zubaydah was arrested in Pakistan in February and has been cooperating with the U.S., the sources said.
Held as material witness
Shortly after his arrest in Chicago, Padilla, 31, was transferred to New York, where he has been held as a material witness in a federal court case that was sealed at the government’s request, according to a government source.
Deputy Atty. Gen Larry Thompson said Padilla was being detained “under the authority of a federal judge, and he had legal representation in connection with that.”
The case was transferred to military custody Sunday, Ashcroft said, after President Bush designated Padilla as an “enemy combatant who poses a serious and continuing threat to the American people and our national security.”
Padilla is being held in the Naval Consolidated Brig in Charleston, S.C. It was unclear whether he might be headed for trial by a military tribunal, possibly as the first defendant to face such a panel since Bush announced last year that he would create tribunals as part of the war on terrorism.
Bush has said the tribunals would apply only to non-U.S. citizens. It is unclear whether Padilla would be an exception to that rule, unlike John Walker Lindh, a U.S. citizen charged with conspiring with Al Qaeda to kill Americans. Lindh is facing trial in federal court in Alexandria, Va.
Bush praises efforts
At the White House on Monday, Bush praised the work of U.S. intelligence agencies that have been under scrutiny for their handling of the Sept. 11 attacks. The administration said Padilla’s arrest showed that FBI, CIA and law-enforcement officials could work together to prevent acts of terror.
“Thanks to the vigilance of our intelligence gathering and law enforcement, he is now off the streets, where he should be,” Bush said.
The White House said the president learned of the suspect shortly after his May 8 arrest. It was unclear whether the arrest helped build a case for administration warnings last month, when Vice President Dick Cheney said additional terror strikes were “not a matter of if, but when.”
U.S. law-enforcement and intelligence officials often mention dirty bombs as a weapon that Al Qaeda terrorists might deploy against U.S. targets. Al Qaeda members, they say, have been active in their attempts to procure radioactive material on the black market.
CIA and FBI officials in Pakistan learned of Padilla’s involvement in the alleged bombing scheme two weeks before he made his circuitous way to Chicago, government sources said.
How Padilla ended up in Afghanistan is unclear. He was born in New York, officials said, but moved to Chicago when he was 5 years old. Padilla was charged as a juvenile with murder in Chicago, and at least six other crimes as an adult. In Florida, he was charged with a gun violation.
Justice officials say Padilla met an Egyptian woman and converted to Islam in the 1990s, moving to Egypt in 1998 or 1999 to further his studies.
Zubaydah, the Al Qaeda operative, told his U.S. interrogators he met with Padilla in Afghanistan after the Sept. 11 attacks, according to several government sources. Padilla, the officials said, proposed that he return to the U.S. to build and set off a dirty radiological bomb.
Zubaydah took Padilla to meet with Al Qaeda operatives in several locations in Afghanistan, according to an intelligence source, and Padilla was then instructed to go to Lahore, Pakistan, to research the construction of such a device. While there, Padilla received additional training on wiring explosive devices, intelligence and Justice sources said.
Earlier this year, Padilla, accompanied by Zubaydah, met several times with senior Al Qaeda leaders in Karachi, Pakistan, the intelligence source said.
FBI agents tracked Padilla from late April, and traveled undercover on the planes that Padilla took after leaving Islamabad, Pakistan. His route took him to Zurich, then to Cairo, then back to Zurich and then, on May 8, to Chicago on a Swissair flight.
Padilla was detained when he got off the plane. Agents found him carrying more than $10,000 in cash, but they declined to say whether he was carrying anything else, or what his immediate travel plans had been.
