A US-born al-Qaeda recruit trained to become a suicide bomber before he was captured in Pakistan last year, law enforcement officials said on Thursday.
Bryant Neal Vinas learned how to use a suicide vest, according to the law enforcement officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case publicly. One of the officials also said Vinas told investigators he heard discussions about targeting the Belgian metro system.
Pakistani authorities nabbed the 26-year-old New Yorker last year in the city of Peshawar near the border of Afghanistan but law enforcement officials have refused to say exactly when.
Since his arrest, Vinas has become one of the most valuable informants in the war on terror, giving investigators a rare look at al-Qaeda’s day-to-day operations in a lawless region bordering Pakistan.
While he has been in custody, the US has made a series of successful Predator strikes on suspected al-Qaeda locations in the difficult-to-penetrate border region, raising questions about whether Vinas provided the information that led to the deadly attacks.
Vinas, who grew up in the New York City suburbs of Long Island, was charged in New York court papers unsealed on Wednesday with giving al-Qaeda “expert advice and assistance” about New York’s transit system and with a rocket attack on US forces in Afghanistan last year.
The identity of Vinas, nicknamed “Ibrahim” or “Bashir al-Ameriki,” has been kept secret since his indictment late last year. Court papers show he pleaded guilty in January in a sealed courtroom in Brooklyn and remains in US custody in New York.
Authorities issued an alert around Thanksgiving last year saying the FBI had received a “plausible but unsubstantiated” report that al-Qaeda terrorists may have discussed attacking the subway around the holidays. The origin of that report was Vinas, according to law enforcement officials.
Vinas was also interviewed this year in New York by prosecutors in Belgium pursuing an anti-terror case involving Malika El Aroud, said an official at the Belgian Federal Prosecutor’s Office, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the case. El Aroud is the widow of a man involved in killing anti-Taliban warlord Ahmed Shah Massoud two days before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Drug lord Jose Adolfo Macias Villamar, alias “Fito,” was Ecuador’s most-wanted fugitive before his arrest on Wednesday, more than a year after he escaped prison from where he commanded the country’s leading criminal gang. The former taxi driver turned crime boss became the prime target of law enforcement early last year after escaping from a prison in the southwestern port of Guayaquil. Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa’s government released “wanted” posters with images of his face and offered US$1 million for information leading to his capture. In a country plagued by crime, members of Fito’s gang, Los Choneros, have responded with violence, using car
Two former Chilean ministers are among four candidates competing this weekend for the presidential nomination of the left ahead of November elections dominated by rising levels of violent crime. More than 15 million voters are eligible to choose today between former minister of labor Jeannette Jara, former minister of the interior Carolina Toha and two members of parliament, Gonzalo Winter and Jaime Mulet, to represent the left against a resurgent right. The primary is open to members of the parties within Chilean President Gabriel Boric’s ruling left-wing coalition and other voters who are not affiliated with specific parties. A recent poll by the
TENSIONS HIGH: For more than half a year, students have organized protests around the country, while the Serbian presaident said they are part of a foreign plot About 140,000 protesters rallied in Belgrade, the largest turnout over the past few months, as student-led demonstrations mount pressure on the populist government to call early elections. The rally was one of the largest in more than half a year student-led actions, which began in November last year after the roof of a train station collapsed in the northern city of Novi Sad, killing 16 people — a tragedy widely blamed on entrenched corruption. On Saturday, a sea of protesters filled Belgrade’s largest square and poured into several surrounding streets. The independent protest monitor Archive of Public Gatherings estimated the
Irish-language rap group Kneecap on Saturday gave an impassioned performance for tens of thousands of fans at the Glastonbury Festival despite criticism by British politicians and a terror charge for one of the trio. Liam Og O hAnnaidh, who performs under the stage name Mo Chara, has been charged under the UK’s Terrorism Act with supporting a proscribed organization for allegedly waving a Hezbollah flag at a concert in London in November last year. The rapper, who was charged under the anglicized version of his name, Liam O’Hanna, is on unconditional bail before a further court hearing in August. “Glastonbury,
RSS