'London bomb plot' suspect admits to terrorism

An American, who admits being part an alleged plot to blow up London pubs, rail stations and restaurants, faces 30 years to life in prison under an agreement with federal prosecutors in New York.

Mohammed Junaid Babar, who quit a €61,000-a-year computer job in the hope of joining the fight against US troops in Afghanistan, has admitted terrorism charges.

He has provided information about a Pakistani group’s alleged London terror plot, said officials in New York last night.

He was arrested in New York by the Joint Terrorism Task Force in April as a material witness – a person whose testimony is required in a criminal investigation before a grand jury or in a trial – and has been in custody ever since.

Babar, 29, the grandson of Pakistani immigrants, has not been publicly charged.

Megan Gaffney, a spokeswoman for the US attorney’s office in Manhattan, declined to comment on any aspect of the case, and there were no details of the charges because the indictment was sealed.

But law enforcement officials said late last night that Babar pleaded guilty and had been co-operating with terrorism investigators.

The alleged London plot was foiled in March when eight suspects were arrested in London and 1,000lbs of ammonium nitrate fertiliser – which can be used to make explosives – was seized from a storage locker.

Three US law enforcement officials said there was no indication that Mr Babar was involved in any planned attacks in the United States, or that he had information about any.

“It wasn’t an attack in the US,” one said, “but it was a serious plot to be launched in England, and this guy was supporting it from this country and other places.”

Investigators, whose attention was drawn to Mr. Babar when they learned of an interview he gave to Canadian TV, later developed information linking him to the alleged London plot.

US authorities said Babar, who grew up in the Queens district of New York, was put on a terror watch list when they learned he made inflammatory remarks to a Canadian reporter in Pakistan after the September 11 2001 attacks.

In the televised interview, Babar said that despite the fact his mother had escaped from the ninth floor of one of the World Trade Centre’s towers, his loyalty was “to the Muslims, not the Americans”.

He also announced his intention to join the Taliban and “kill Americans” in Afghanistan.

“I can’t stand by and live in America while my Muslims are being bombed in Afghanistan,” he said then. “You know, I say my loyalty is toward them. Now it’s time to prove my loyalty to the Muslims of Afghanistan.”

It was unclear whether Babar made it to Afghanistan. But in early March, he returned to New York, where a team of police investigators and FBI agents put him under surveillance, the officials said.

Babar was arrested about a month later on his way to a school for taxi drivers in Long Island City.

The FBI and the New York Police Department declined to comment.