Metro

Qaeda rant of bomb zombie

An al Qaeda-controlled city cabby who became a subway bomb plotter went on a tirade of hate yesterday, blaming “Zionist Jews” for “destroying this country from within” during his guilty plea in Brooklyn federal court.

“I believe that real enemies of this country are the ones who destroy from within,” railed Zarein Ahmedzay, sporting a short black beard and wrinkled blue prison scrubs over a long-sleeve shirt. “And I believe these are the special group, the Zionist Jews, I believe, who want a permanent shadow government within . . . the United States.”

The 25-year-old Queens College dropout chillingly quoted a jihadist call to arms before telling the court how he and his al Qaeda-trained cohorts planned to carry out devastating, simultaneous suicide bombings on Manhattan subway trains.

“Verily, Allah has purchased of the believers their lives and their wealth for the price of paradise, to fight in the way of Allah, to kill and get killed. It is the promise binding him on the truth the Torah, gospel and the Koran,” he said.

READ AHMEDZAY’S COMPLETE STATEMENT

Ahmedzay was charged with receiving training from terrorist operatives overseas in August 2008, then returning to the United States with cohort Najibullah Zazi — the main American mastermind who has already pleaded guilty — as well as an unnamed third person. That man is presumed to be co-defendant Adis Medunjanin.

The three, pals from Flushing HS, plotted with the help of al Qaeda trainers to use homemade acetone and peroxide bombs to blow up subway cars during rush hour to maximize the carnage, the feds have charged.

“They wanted my input because I was familiar with the city — I was a New York City taxi driver and knew the city very well,” said Ahmedzay. “They said the most important thing was to hit well-known structures and to maximize the number of casualties.”

Ahmedzay admitted to flying to Afghanistan in the summer of 2008 to join the Taliban to “wage jihad against the US occupation and the corrupt and imposter Karzai government, to overthrow it, and establish the perfect justice of Allah.”

But terrorist leaders there “said we would be more useful to them and to the jihad if we returned to New York and conducted operations there,” according to Ahmedzay.

He, Zazi and Medunjanin were refused entry into the country and returned to Peshawar, Pakistan, where they met al Qaeda operatives. They were then taken to a training compound in the Waziristan region, where the plot against the city was first discussed.

Federal prosecutor Jeffrey Knox said the trio were embraced and instructed by Saleh Al Somali, the chief of international operations for al Qaeda, and Rashid Rauf, a “key operative” in the terror group.

Rauf was the mastermind of a 2006 plot to bomb trans-Atlantic flights to the US. Both he and Al Somali were later killed by US drone aircraft strikes.

“I personally believed that conducting an operation in the United States would be the best way to end the wars,” said Ahmedzay.

However, he got cold feet about the plot against the city and dropped out for a while.

“When I first got to New York, I still had my doubts about continuing forward with the suicide bombing, but a few months later, I changed my mind and committed to going forward with the plan,” Ahmedzay said.

Back in the US, Zazi, a former Manhattan coffee cart vendor who had relocated to Denver, began mixing the ingredients for the bombs.

“The three of us met in Queens and decided to continue with the plan to conduct suicide bombings during the month of Ramadan,” Ahmedzay said.

Zazi tried to make the explosive TATP in a hotel room, but found that he would not be able to produce enough to target buildings or critical structures by the time of the Muslim holy month.

So they decided instead to detonate their bombs on crowded Manhattan subway trains on Sept. 14, 15 and 16.

Zazi prepared his deadly concoction and drove to New York from Denver, where he distributed the materials to his cohorts.

But when he then caught a whiff of the FBI surveillance, Ahmedzay and Medunjanin were told that the plot was off.

Ahmedzay was initially arrested while driving a cab in Greenwich Village on Jan. 8, and charged with making false statements to the FBI.

On Feb. 24, after Zazi pleaded guilty to hatching the subway plot, Ahmedzay and Medunjanin were hit with charges that they, too, were in on the plot.

Ahmedzay faces two life terms when he is sentenced on July 30.

janon.fisher@nypost.com