Birmingham's Rashid Rauf linked to new US terror plot

Nov 15 2009 by Ben Goldby, Sunday Mercury

TERROR mastermind Rashid Rauf has been linked to a fresh Al Qaida plot to launch attacks on the US.

The Birmingham-born extremist has been named by witnesses due to testify against Najibullah Zazi, who was arrested for plotting suicide bombings in New York.

MI6 officers have linked the plot to a complex terror network said to be directed from Pakistan by Rauf and fellow jihadists.

Zazi, 24, was identified through an intercepted communication, and was further implicated by US national Bryant Neal Vinas, who was captured in Pakistan last November.

Vinas, 26, allegedly admits meeting Rauf and receiving training to blow up a train on the Long Island Rail Road inside New York’s busy Pennsylvania Station.

Zazi, an Afghan national who has lived in the US for 17 years, is said to have flown to Pakistan’s North Western Province in August last year to gather information on bomb-making along with Vinas.

According to US court documents, Zazi returned to his home in New York in January and then moved to Colorado where he was working in an airport.