Family shocked at Bangladesh man's arrest in NY terror bomb plot Family ... - New York Daily News [dayinformations.blogspot.com]
BY BARRY PADDOCK, ROCCO PARASCANDOLA, MATTHEW LYSIAK and LARRY McSHANE
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
The Al Qaeda wanna-be accused of plotting to bomb the Manhattan Federal Reserve building came from a middle-class Bangladeshi family that spent its last dime sending him to the U.S.
Suspect Quazi Mohammad Rezwanul Ahsan Nafis was taking English classes at a Manhattan school in the days before his Wednesday arrest as a would-be terrorist.
He stopped showing up for classes at the ASA Institute of Business and Computer Technology on Tuesday â€" the day before he was busted. Nafis was pursuing a computer programming major.
“We are very surprised and kind of at a loss of what to say,†said George Trahanis, the school’s international student advisor. “We’ve never had this situation happen before.â€
Nafis, 21, had all his paperwork in order â€" including his dad’s bank statement â€" for entrance to the school on Broadway in Midtown.
During an interview with an admissions rep, Nafis “seemed very nice and very polite,†said Trahanis. His first day of classes was Oct. 9 â€" long after Nafis began planning his twisted plot.
The suspect’s stunned relatives insisted on his innocence Thursday as the terror suspect sat behind bars without bail.
“My son can't do it," Nafis’ weeping father, banker Quazi Ahsanullah, told The Associated Press in his home in the Jatrabari neighborhood in north Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. “He is very gentle and devoted to his studies.â€
Ahsanullah and his wife spoke with Nafis via Skype from New York just hours before his arrest â€" with their son detailing his plans to transfer to a college in the city, The Associated Press reported.
Nafis insisted that his grades were good while offering no clue of his alleged plot to “cause a large number of civilian casualties, including women and children,†as charged in a federal complaint.
Nafis arrived in the U.S. in January on a student visa after convincing his dad that a degree from an American college would help lead to success in their homeland.
“I spent all my savings to send him to America,†Ahsanullah said. “I can’t believe he could be part of it.â€
But once here, authorities said, the bloodthirsty young man began plotting to “destroy America†while pledging his allegiance to “our beloved Sheikh Osama Bin Laden.â€
Mayor Bloomberg noted that this was the 15th foiled plot targeting New York City since the terrorist attacks that toppled the World Trade Center.
“The great danger is that we are going to forget the lesson we should have learned on 9/11,†the mayor said Thursday. “We have to make sure we stay safe and don’t let our guard down.
“Freedom is fragile, and we have to work hard to keep ourselves safe.â€
In addition to his plans to detonate a 1,000-pound bomb at the Federal Reserve Bank on Liberty St. in lower Manhattan, Nafis also considered assassinating President Obama and blowing up the New York Stock Exchange, according to a criminal complaint.
Nafis attended Southeast Missouri State University in the spring â€" although his academic record in Bangladesh was hardly stellar.
The would-be bomber was a terrible student at the private North South University in Dhaka and was nearly expelled because of bad grades. He eventually dropped out, a school spokesman said.
The father said the suspect, who vowed in a videotaped statement that “we will not stop until we attain victory or martyrdom,†was a shy and quiet boy.
The timid Nafis was even afraid to climb on the roof of their home without a friend.
The family, including a sister who’s a doctor, described Nafis as a devout Muslim with no terrorist leanings.
“Nafis is not a radical type,†his dad told Agence France-Presse. “He says prayers five times a day and read the holy Koran every day. I have never seen him reading any books on jihad.â€
Authorities said he was unafraid of constructing the huge car bomb from 50 20-pound bags of ammonium nitrate. He was working with an accomplice who was really an undercover FBI agent.
NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly said the suspected terrorist came here with “the avowed purpose of committing some sort of jihad in the United States.â€
Nafis was intent on assembling an Al Qaeda cell here to assist him in reaching his psychopathic goal, federal official revealed.
The bearded suspect was busted Wednesday morning after he repeatedly tried to detonate the phony bomb with a cell phone from the Millenium Hilton Hotel â€" just opposite Ground Zero.
He faces life in prison on charges of attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction and attempting to provide material aid to Al Qaeda.
A source described the intended bomb as similar to the one used in the first World Trade Center attack in 1993.
Nafis allegedly assembled the device early Wednesday at a Long Island warehouse, pouring what he thought were real explosives into bags and trash bins, then packing them in a Chevy Astro van, the complaint shows.
While en route to his target, Nafis bragged to his accomplice that he had devised a “Plan B†to conduct a suicide bombing operation if cops thwarted his diabolical Federal Reserve attack.
“Before entering Manhattan, Nafis armed the purported explosive device for detonation by turning on the cellular phone to be used in the detonator, installing the battery in the detonator and connecting the wires linking the detonator to the purported explosive materials,†the criminal complaint details.
On the ride in, Nafis also revealed his jihadist views were shaped, in part, by the videotaped sermons of Anwar al-Awlaki, the American-born Yemeni imam and top Al Qaeda recruiter killed by a U.S. drone attack.
“What we know is that Awlaki was a motivator for this person,†Kelly said.
On Tuesday night, he told the FBI informant he wanted the bombing “to happen, no matter what.â€
Officials said they have recorded phone conversations of Nafis plotting the attack and had installed video surveillance cameras at the warehouse where he stored his explosives.
lmcshane@nydailynews.com
Related Family shocked at Bangladesh man's arrest in NY terror bomb plot Family ... - New York Daily News Articles Question by Gun: "Reciting information" is more important than "acquiring knowledge" in modern politically correct society? Do you believe that "reciting information" has become more important than "acquiring knowledge" in modern feminized politically correct society? @Fereshte: Calm down.. What I meant was how the entire education system in modren feminized society is base on how well you "recited information", instead of teaching other to think for themselves and challenging to the greatest among us. Thinking for oneself is not rewarded in our society - unless it is in business. In other words, our society's education system prepares students for life as a politically correct system, rather than life as it really is - and the skills required to make one successful. And plus, those were "philosophical amateurs" like you said. Best answer for "Reciting information" is more important than "acquiring knowledge" in modern politically correct society?:
Answer by afraidofamericans
I would say that acquiring knowledge is not as important as it once was, unless it is the kind of information we can get on the TV, while sitting on our fat a*ses.
Answer by drjj1967
Yes, I would agree. But I would hardly glorify feminism by calling its axioms "information." How about "reciting propaganda?"
Answer by Tracey Troll-Bane
I'd pit my education against yours any day of the week.
Answer by Top-Secret Feminist Conspiracy
Isnt that all our schools teach now a days?..... Dont believe it has anything to do with PC or feminist. To recite info only takes a few sparking brain cells....but to acquire, use and implement new knowledge is a whole other level of thinking.
Answer by Libertad V
Well...the construction of scientific knowledge requires of both.
Answer by Blue B
I think most of us are educated and like to acquire knowledge so that we can recite information. Merely rattling off facts and figures does not mean you are educated on that subject.
Answer by Fereshte
"Reciting information" has been a problem for thousands of years. Think back to the Greeks and their views on writing. Some felt that writing was a way to stunt the mind (instead of actually knowing the information). Plenty of Greek philosophers complained that too many philosophical amateurs would "recite" information as apposed to actually knowing/understanding it. And seeing as how the Greeks were NOT feminized, I think I just debunked your theory. Recitation verse acquired knowledge will ALWAY be an issue as long as there a individuals who seek to sound smart instead of actually being it. This is not a new problem. EDIT- I'm sorry if I came across as riled up. That wasn't my intention. I think you have a point but I disagree with you. Well, at least from the stand point of American schools (I'm not sure if you're American or not). When I was in high school, I lived in Japan for a year and went to school there. The basis of their education is "recitation." They study to be able to "recall" information--both written and verbally in class. However, they do not practice open ended questions--which is one of the foundations of American education. In comparison, American education values and presses this "individual thinking" and wants us to be able to come up with our own choices/answers. Since in Japan individualism isn't as highly valued as in America, its not the same type of teaching. I can understand where your view would come from, though, if you hadn't gone to a school that relied heavily on memory recall and recitation.
Answer by Lyn7721
You should acquire knowledge so that can recite accurate information. What is the main difference to you? Unless you did research yourself, acquiring knowledge and then reciting it IS almost always reciting information. Why you're associating this with feminization and political correctness is beyond me. Just incase you wanted to pretend that you're so ignorant you didn't know this-simply reciting information can happen in any situation from any point of view.
Answer by Douchey
I would say yes, however it's not so much that they neglect to acquire knowledge as it is that they refuse to back their "information" with any substantiated evidence. Furthermore I agree with the early poster, you'd have to have a very loose definition of what constitutes as "information" .. Self-righteous rhetoric and propaganda hardly contribute to any sort of worthwhile knowledge as far as i'm concerned
Answer by ProfessorC
Sorry but most education systems operate on Bloom's Taxonomy. I find its the students who resent having to apply knowledge to actual situations.
Answer by Alvin Stardust
Isn't most discourse (apart from the much smaller circle of original research) simply regurgitating, reciting and recycling other people's knowledge? Repeating that Wellington's army won at Waterloo, or 2+2=4, or that salicylic acid is synthesised from phenol, or even that Rosa Parks was a catalyst for changes in racial laws, does not make people either stupid or politically correct. Someone else either researched or discovered these ideas, but I feel justified in using them. The failure only comes when people refuse to question them if necessary. I think your question is only tenuously linked to what you really want to state: that you think feminism rules the whole of society. This is more paranoia than absolute fact, and if it bothers you so much, you need to devise better arguments than this to challenge it.
Answer by wendy g
No, you're wrong. I think critical thinking skills are becoming an important facet of education, more and more. Recitation and rote learning was much more important decades ago...now critical thinking is MUCH more important. I know, I've studied it. Feminism is one of the social movements that taught everybody to questions perceptions and norms, not accept them. It's anti-feminists that want to go back to acceptance of stereotypes and unquestioning submission...for women, anyway.
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