UK Al Qaeda commander planned July 7-style attack on New York subway

London, Apr.26 (ANI): An Al Qaeda commander is said to have made an attempt to replicate a July 7, 2005 type attack on the New York subway system.

According to The Telegraph, Rashid Rauf allegedly told three Americans to attack targets in the United States in a similar manner as was done on the London underground almost five years ago.

Rauf's role in the New York plot emerged as Zarein Ahmedzay, a 25-year-old former New York taxi driver, pleaded guilty to charges including conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction.

It is claimed they had bought the ingredients to make similar explosives as those used in the July 7 2005 bombings, which killed 52 people on three tube trains and a bus in London.

In court, Ahmedzay said he travelled to Pakistan with two other former school friends from Queen's, New York, Najibullah Zazi and Adis Medunjanin in the summer of 2008.

At the camp in the lawless region of North Waziristan, Ahmedzay said the three men offered to join the Taliban and fight US forces in Afghanistan, but were told they would be "more useful if we returned to New York City... to conduct operations."

Asked by the judge what kind of operations, he said: "Suicide-bombing operations." (ANI)