Al-Qaida American 'plotted to kill hundreds'

A former Chicago gang member held as an al-Qaida suspect for two years, sought to blow up hotels and apartment buildings in the United States in addition to planning an attack with a “dirty bomb” radiological device, the US government said today.

The Justice Department, under pressure to explain its indefinite detention of a US citizen as an “enemy combatant,” detailed Jose Padilla’s alleged al-Qaida training in Afghanistan.

It also detailed his contacts with the most senior members of the terrorist network, his travel back into the United States and preparations to rent apartments and set off explosives.

Deputy Attorney General James Comey called the chronicle of Padilla’s plotting “remarkable for its scope, its clarity and its candour.”

The department released documents, based in part on interviews with Padilla, saying he and an al-Qaida accomplice planned to find as many as three high-rise apartment buildings supplied with natural gas.

“Padilla and the accomplice were to locate as many as three high-rise apartment buildings which had natural gas supplied to the floors,” the government summary of interrogations revealed.

“They would rent two apartments in each building, seal all the openings, turn on the gas, and set timers to detonate the buildings simultaneously at a later time,” the papers alleged.

The documents said al-Qaida officials were sceptical of Padilla’s ability to set off a dirty bomb but interested in the apartment operation.

Top al-Qaida officials “wanted Padilla to hit targets in New York City, although Florida and Washington, DC. Were discussed as well,” the summary said.

Comey told a Washington news conference that when Padilla stepped off a plane from Pakistan in Chicago in May 2002, he was a highly trained and fully equipped “soldier of our enemy” who had accepted his al-Qaida assignment to kill hundreds of innocent people in apartment buildings.

“We have decided to release this information to help people understand why we are doing what we are doing in the war on terror and to help people understand the nature of the threat we face,” he said.

He asserted that if Padilla had been handled by the usual criminal justice system, he could have stayed silent and ”would likely have ended up a free man.”

Padilla was to conduct an Internet search on buildings that had natural gas heating, open a bank account and obtain documents needed to rent an apartment.

The plot called for blowing up 20 buildings simultaneously, but Padilla said he could not rent multiple apartments under one identity without drawing attention.

The Supreme Court is expected to rule this month whether American citizens like Padilla who are deemed “enemy combatants,” can be held indefinitely in military jails without any of the traditional legal rights.

After his arrest he was held as a “material witness” for a federal grand jury investigating the September 11 attacks.

But a month later, President Bush invoked his power as commander in chief and declared Padilla an enemy combatant.

He was sent to a military jail.