[Donna Lee Nardo]

FBI Believes Student was bin Laden Scout Investigators Say He was Doing Surveillance Here [NJ]

WABC-NY Channel 7 via ABC News ^ | Oct 14, 2004 | Kemberly Richardson

Posted on 10/14/2004 4:56:03 PM EDT by Mike Fieschko

(Newark-WABC, October 14, 2004) — He looked like any student attending college in New Jersey. But in reality, FBI officials believe he was sent here by Osama bin Laden to scout out possible targets for a terrorist attack. Eyewitness News' Kemberly Richardson reports.
Sources tell Eyewitness News they are making headway with this investigation. They say as they canvas the area showing people a picture of Dhiren Barot they are getting confirmation he was here.

He was seen at tourist areas, universities, and perhaps the most unsettling place: Right in front of the Prudential building.

A senior FBI agent tells Eyewitness News a Starbucks Coffee near the Prudential building may have been a perch for an alleged al-Qaeda operative.

Witnesses confirm that Dhiren Barot was seen inside the shop directly across from the building described by authorities as a potential terror target this past summer.

The 32-year-old is being held by British officials, charged with conducting surveillance of the company's Broad Street headquarters and other buildings in our area.

The buildings have been under heightened security since August, when Pakastani police discovered Barot's reports on computers and emails.

Sources say there are references to trash containers at Prudential Plaza, and that Barot paid close attention to vehicles that were being permitted into the area, including Fedex trucks.

Federal officials believe the reconnaisance took place in the months leading up to September 11th, 2001, that Barot was taking orders directly from Osama bin Laden and was well-known to Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, the captured mastermind of the attacks on New York and Washington, D.C.

The FBI says he entered the U.S. on a student visa, and was living in New Jersey. Witnesses have confirmed he was seen at several college campuses in northern New Jersey.

The FBI also tells us Barot had two notebooks containing information about chemicals and explosives and may have been planning to use radioactive material.

A spokesperson for Prudential says they were briefed on all of these details back in August, and have taken appropriate security measure.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1245252/posts

[Velveeta]

Jihadi board machine translation from today. Thank you Neosgirl.
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Tawhid and Jihad, Zarqawi's group is claiming an operation against the US Embassy

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The monotheism and the jihad it declares an execution two martyrdom operations inside the American embassy

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Two lions from the Lioth of monotheism and jihad execute two martyrdom operations inside the American embassy in Baghdad Bsm Allah Al-Rahman Al-Raheem

The praise of Allah and the prayer and the greeting on the messenger of Allah and on its family and its friends and who and took it ; as for after : then Bfdl Allah it rose on us and from it and its generosity that according to two lions from the martyrs battalion Lioth belonging to the military wing by the Jama'at Al-Tawhid and Jihad from the entrance to inside the headquarters of the American table inside green zone in the capital Baghdad .... This and she is considered this operation from the most successful operations that your brothers carried out in the Jama'at Al-Tawhid and Jihad .... Praise be to God and the favor .... This and will come to the nation by the operation details later on God willing ..... And Allah is the greatest ..And to the honour Allah and to its messenger and to the militants the military wing by the Jama'at Al-Tawhid and Jihad Thursday is 14 - 10 - 2004 -

[nwctwx]

Thanks for the link, there is one things a lot of these stories have in common after the seizure of Khan's notebook... mentions of radioactive material. There was a story recently that the arrests (UK/elsewhere) thave likely had no impact on what was/is planned in the U.S., I'll have to dig that up.