Quiet Investigation Centers on Al Qaeda Aide in New York

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-alqaeda3sep03.story
THE NATION
Quiet Investigation Centers on Al Qaeda Aide in New York
A Pakistani American raised in Queens is telling authorities about plotting with top network members, court documents show.
By Josh Meyer, Greg Krikorian and William C. Rempel
Times Staff Writers

September 3, 2004

NEW YORK — As President Bush touted his record in the war on terror Thursday night at Madison Square Garden, another front in the terrorism fight was playing out nearby in the federal holding cell of a Pakistani American named Mohammed Junaid Babar.

Babar, who grew up in Queens, is a cooperating witness in an unfolding investigation of what authorities say may be a New York-based "sleeper cell" involved in Al Qaeda efforts to launch attacks in the U.S., perhaps as the Nov. 2 election approaches.

The investigation remains nearly invisible to the public, and federal authorities and defense lawyers have refused to discuss it.

But unsealed court documents show that Babar, 29, has admitted meeting with senior Al Qaeda members in remote South Waziristan in Pakistan this year as part of a scheme to smuggle money, night-vision goggles and other equipment to the terrorist network.

On June 3, he secretly pleaded guilty to charges of providing material support to a terrorist organization and agreed to cooperate in ongoing investigations.<snip>