New Yorker says he has been a suicide bomber

A New York man who pleaded guilty in January to charges of helping al-Qaeda was ready to be a suicide man for the organization, but was told he needed more religious education, according to a document obtained by CNN thursday.

Bryant Neal Viñas ga an interview in March to the Belgian prosecutors as part of a terrorism case involving a cell, he was linked. CNN received the prosecution prepared interview summary document from a Belgian defense spokesman lawyer, and was approved by both a federal prosecutor in New York and Viñas' defending attorney.

The French-language document provides a detailed picture of how Viñas traveled from New York to Pakistan and what he did while he was there.

Viñas guilty in January to charges of conspiracy to murder U.S. nationals, providing material to a foreign terrorist organization and receive military-type training from a foreign terrorist organization, the FBI said Wednesday.
He admitted involvement in an attack on a U.S. military base in Afghanistan in September 2008, according to an indictment Filed under seal and made public Wednesday. Moreover, the authorities said he provided al Qaeda with information about the New York transit system and the Long Island Railroad.

Viñas, 26, is an American citizen, says a source close to the investigation. He was arrested in Pakistan, the source said.

According to the document obtained Thursday in Queens, New York-born Viñas converted from Catholicism to Islam in 2004. He connected with Al Qaeda in Pakistan, three years later, and in September 2007 was determined to wage jihad in Afghanistan, the document says.

He left New York just six years after al-Qaida struck the town and came in Lahore, a city in eastern Pakistan, 12 September 2007. With the help of a friend he had known in New York, which was connected in militant circles Viñas sought out people in Lahore, which could help link him to the jihadist fight in Afghanistan, according to the document.

Weeks later, the document says Viñas was in Afghanistan's Kunar province, a hotbed of rebellion, with a group of 20 rebels who crept up near a U.S. combat outpost. At the last minute they decided not to fire-bomb shooter at the base, because the American war planes were circling overhead, the document says.

Before you start RAID, Viñas said the recruits were asked to sign some forms. From the document, it is not clear whether these methods constituted formal membership of Al Qaeda, but Viñas stated that "it was not necessary to sign documents or take part in a ceremony to become a member of al-Qaeda."
Later in the document, he was quoted as saying he has managed to become a full member of al-Qaida.
Viñas then back into Mohmand, an agency in Pakistan's tribal chieftain territories document says. His action then asked him to become suicide man. He agreed and was sent to Peshawar, Pakistan, for further instructions. But Viñas told the investigator that his action decided he needed more religious instruction before he would be ready to be a suicide, the document said.
After his training in Peshawar, Viñas said he traveled to the mountains of Waziristan in Pakistan's tribal chieftain areas. Viñas said that in his time he spent much time with members of al-Qaida, including operating from Saudi Arabia and Yemen, according to the document.
Between March and July 2008, Viñas said he attended three al-Qaida training, learn to fire an AK-47, a rocket-propelled GRENADE launcher and small arms. He also familiarized himself with explosives and had learned to make suicide bombing vests. At the end of their training, Viñas said his handlers judged that he was eligible to participate in rocket attacks against U.S., NATO and Afghan bases in Afghanistan, the document said.

In September 2008, Viñas said he traveled to a town near the Afghan border, where he joined a group including the jihadist al-Qaeda fighters. Creeping over the Afghan border, he said that the group rockets at an American combat outpost in Afghanistan. This is attacked Viñas guilty in January, authorities said Wednesday.

After launching the attack, Viñas spent several weeks in the mountains of Waziristan near the Afghan border. It was there, Viñas said he had detailed discussions with "al-Qaida commanders, according to the document. Viñas is quoted as saying the object of these discussions, including attacks on the West Bank, including in the United States. Viñas is not mentioned in the document preparation further.
Viñas stated that he left Pakistan's tribal chieftain areas in October 2008 and returned to Peshawar in search of a wife. That is where he was arrested some weeks later.

Viñas is cited in the document says that during his stay in Pakistan, he spent time with a number of Belgian and French nationals who had visited Pakistan's tribal chieftain territories in early 2008 and like Viñas, received military training there. In December 2008, several members of this group and some of their colleagues Brussels was arrested when they returned to Europe after the security services received indications they can plot a terrorist attack in Belgium.
Belgian Magistrate would issue Viñas in March because of this.

Viñas guilty in January 28 in a closed hearing, according to court documents. At the time the case was filed names like "John Doe" as defendants and were sealed.

FBI's New York office would not say whether Viñas is convicted or a comment about why the case was closed. It said Viñas is in police custody in the U.S. in March Neck Service.
Viñas is also known as "Ibrahim", "Bashir al-Ameriki" and "Ben Yame al Kandee," according to indictment unsealed Wednesday.

In Pakistan, according to the document, Viñas said he met the alleged leader of the French-Belgian cell, a Tunisian by the Belgian intelligence services, sources told CNN was Moez Garsallaoui. Garsallaoui is a man of Malika el Aroud, a Belgian woman who has been described as an "icon" in the jihadist movement because her ex-husband murdered Ahmed Shah Massoud, the leader of Afghanistan's anti-Taliban Northern Alliance, two days before 9 / 11.
El Aroud was one of those arrested in Brussels and await trial, accused of having with her new husband to recruit Europeans to fight Jihad. In 2006, CNN interview Garsallaoui and El Aroud in Switzerland.

Garsallaoui by the Belgian counter terrorism sources, however, believes that the store in the tribal chieftain areas between Afghanistan and Pakistan, boasted to the other team members that he had carried out an attack on a U.S. base in Afghanistan, firing rockets from Pakistan, according to legal documents obtained by CNN.

It is not clear whether Viñas Garsallaoui also involved in these raids.

Source: CNN.com