American-born al-Qaida recruit becomes key informant

An American-born al-Qaida recruit has become one of the counter-terrorism world’s most valuable informants, giving investigators a rare look at al-Qaida’s day-to-day operations in a lawless region bordering Pakistan which US officials have struggled to infiltrate, investigators said.

Bryant Neal 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-Qaida “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 the 26-year-old 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.

A law enforcement official said Vinas provided critical information that led to a security alert about the New York City subway system last year. The official described Vinas as a military convert captured last year in Pakistan.

Authorities issued an alert last year saying the FBI had received a “plausible but unsubstantiated” report that al-Qaida terrorists in late September may have discussed attacking the subway system around the holidays in November and December. The origin of that report, the official said, was Vinas.

Vinas was also interviewed this year in New York by prosecutors in Belgium pursuing an anti-terror case involving Malika El Aroud, the widow of a man involved in killing anti-Taliban warlord Ahmed Shah Massoud two days before the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, an official at the Belgian Federal Prosecutor’s Office said today.

Vinas’ testimony was being submitted to a closed court custody hearing on Friday in Belgium, said the official.

El Aroud and five others have been in custody since their arrest in December and are charged with belonging to a terrorist organisation, which Belgian officials say is part of an al-Qaida group plotting new attacks either in Europe or elsewhere.

A defence lawyer in that case, Christophe Marchand, said Vinas had provided a statement against the French and Belgium defendants charged with going to Pakistan to volunteer to fight with al-Qaida.

Mr Marchand denied his client was a terrorist or knew Vinas.

“He never talked about meeting an American – never,” the lawyer said.

Other people familiar with the case say Vinas told counter-terrorism investigators about meetings with top al-Qaida members while staying at a network of hideouts on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, where he trained from about March 2008 to August 2008.

Vinas named several of the terror group’s officials and described their activities, including rocket and mortar strikes against US forces in the area, said investigators. Vinas also revealed discussions among terrorists about potential civilian targets in Europe and described training in weapons and explosives, they said.

Vinas received “military-style training” from al-Qaida, according to court papers.

Vinas’ lawyer, Len Kamdang, wouldn’t comment, other than requesting “the public withhold judgment in this case until all of the facts become available”.

There was no answer at the door Wednesday at a Vinas family address in Patchogue, about 55 miles east of Manhattan on Long Island.

A woman who answered a family phone number found in public records said she was Vinas’ mother and had not seen her son since he moved out 10 years ago at age 18.

“He’s a stranger to me,” she said before hanging up without giving her name.

Vinas’ Peruvian-born father, Juan Vinas, told the Los Angeles Times in a recent interview that federal agents had interviewed him. He said he didn’t know where his son was.

“The FBI asked me all kinds of questions about him, but they don’t tell me nothing,” he said.

The president of the Islamic Association of Long Island, a mosque in nearby Selden, said he recalled a “very quiet, polite, smiley” young Hispanic man called Ibrahim, who was a frequent but unassuming presence at the mosque for about a year, starting roughly 2 1/2 years ago.

He turned up four to five times a week for services but never participated in any social activities at the mosque, said president Nayyar Imam. He said Ibrahim apparently converted to Islam and changed his name before he began coming to the mosque.

“He’s the last person in the mosque you would think about” getting involved in terrorism, Mr Imam said.