al-Qaeda in…Long Island, NY

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Bryant Neal Vinas, a 26-year-old from Long Island, N.Y., was charged back in January with attacking a U.S. military base and providing information to the Al-Qaeda terror network. The court documents remained classified because their publication could have compromised other ongoing investigations, but now they have been released and provide insight into one of the few Americans known to have joined or trained with Al-Qaeda.

The Facts:

• He started attending Islamic services three or four years ago and eventually converted. He joined the the Islamic Association of Long Island, a mosque where most attendees are from Pakistan. While there, he went by the name Ibrahim.
• Vinas became a licensed truck driver but quit his job and left home in 2007, saying he wanted to study Islam and Arabic. His parents had no idea where he went.
• His confiscated computer revealed that prior to leaving home, Vinas had visited jihadist websites.
• Because the young American had no previous criminal record and no connection with any other terrorist groups, he was able to travel freely through foreign countries.
• Traveled to Pakistan and Afghanistan in late 2007 or early 2008, where he went by a number of names, including Ben Yameen al-Kanadee and Bashir al-Amriki (Bashir the American).
• After a truck bomb killed more than 50 people at the Islamabad Marriott hotel in September 2008, the FBI interviewed the Vinas family about their son. According to Vinas’ father, they indicated that it was just routine.
• Vinas was in Peshwar, Pakistan in November 2008, supposedly to buy supplies and use the Internet, when he was arrested by Pakistani authorities. Authorities have not revealed how they located him.
• He has been linked to a Belgian-French terror cell and also to Moez Garsallaoui, a Tunisian Islamist militant whom he may have met while in Pakistan.
• Vinas was charged with conspiracy to murder U.S. citizens, providing information to a terrorist organization, and receiving “military-type training” from a Al-Qaeda. He originally pled not guilty but switched on Jan 28 and pled guilty to all charges.
• According to court documents, he admitted to firing rockets on a U.S. military base in Afghanistan in September 2008.
• Vinas informed U.S. officials of an Al Qaeda plot to blow up a Long Island Rail Road commuter train in New York’s Penn Station, saying that he had provided them with details of the New York transit system. This revelation lead authorities to issue a Nov. 25 2008 terror alert.
• He is expected to be a key witness in the cases of other Al Qaeda members, including that of Malika El Aroud, a Morrocan-born Belgian woman accused of recruiting Al Qaeda members over the Internet.
• Vinas is currently in the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service in an undisclosed location somewhere in New York.

Interrogation

Vinas’ testimony gives us a unique view inside al-Qaeda and how they operate. Notes include the classes he took at ‘terror school.’

In Waziristan between March and July 2008, Mr. Vinas undergoes a proper Qaeda education. There were three basic courses, each with 10 to 20 students, according to the interrogation notes.

The first course offered an introduction to the AK-47, the machine gun and the pistol. Then came a class in what became Mr. Vinas’s concentration: explosives. This 15-day course taught students to manufacture suicide belts, how to tuck the belts around their waists and how to test the battery and voltmeters.

Classmates become comfortable seeing, smelling and touching various explosives, according to the interrogation summary.

The third Qaeda class offered an introduction to rocket-propelled grenades. Shortly after, Mr. Vinas graduated from terror school. (Other classes offered instruction in forgery, poison and advanced bombs. None mentioned the Geneva Conventions or the treatment of prisoners and civilians, the summary notes.)

“Soon after Vinas had completed the courses, A. S. told him that all of the students underwent a written evaluation of their performance during the courses, and that these reports were kept in the student’s personal file,” the interrogation summary notes, without identifying A. S.

Qualified now to attack American and NATO bases, Mr. Vinas hiked off with a unit and twice tried to fire rockets at American bases. The first attack failed because of radio problems, and in the second case, the missiles fell short of the base.

“I consulted with a senior Al Qaeda leader and provided detailed information about the operation of the Long Island Rail Road system which I knew because I had ridden the railroad on many occasions,” he said, reading from a prepared statement. “The purpose of providing this information was to help plan a bomb attack of the Long Island Rail Road system.”

Analysis

So we now know that al-Qaeda may be more successful in recruiting Americans than we previously thought. We also know that they are interested in our mass transport systems, something that has been taken advantage of in other countries. Because the public is so far behind in getting this information, which I think was a good move by the government, we can’t fully grasp what needs to be done. I would sure hope that, because 6 months have passed, security was stepped up at the Long Island Rail Road system. I think our mass transportation systems across the country need to be looked at. Especially with the crash in Washington D.C. and the subsequent realization that the system had been essentially ignored for a long time. If we do nothing, the country remains vulnerable to attack, I don’t believe the government is just sitting idly by, but I would also like to see some documented progress.  I would also like to find out who this mysterious A.S. is.

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