I know this is a little late as a response seeing as I just discovered this thread from a link on another one, but the contents of this story have been confirmed. I've actually been working on some of the research of it since the time this was posted.
You may find the terrorist guy's name confirmed on the United States Department of Justice website. He pled guilty a couple days after the story broke.
http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/txn/PressRel02/elashyi_ple_pr.html