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An admitted al Qaeda devotee from Queens chillingly testified yesterday that his high-school buddy was ready to blow himself up in a terrorist plot on New York’s subway system aimed at causing maximum carnage.
Adis Medunjanin, 28, “was committed” to the evil plot in 2009, said admitted co-conspirator Zarein Ahmedzay in Brooklyn federal court on the first day of Medunjanin’s terrorism trial.
“He was to be one of the suicide bombers.”
“That plan was to conduct the attacks in the subway . . . busy stations, like Grand Central Station — during rush hour,” said Ahmedzay, a former yellow taxi driver.
Before developing that plan, which was thwarted by the NYPD and FBI, three pals trained in Pakistan in 2008 at an al Qaeda camp, testified Ahmedzay, who along with a fellow Queens resident and Flushing HS alum named Najibullah Zazi has already pleaded guilty in the case.
The three men, who were angry about the deaths of Muslims in the US war on terrorism, traveled to the lawless tribal region of northwest Pakistan intent on joining Taliban insurgent fighters in Afghanistan.
“My thought is that we would have to kill and maybe get killed ourselves,” Ahmedzay testified.
But after the Taliban rebuffed them, the pals ended up at the al Qaeda training camp, where an operative of the group noted their value to the diabolical cause because of their American passports, Ahmedzay testified.
The three men were trained with AK-47 assault rifles, rocket-propelled grenade launchers and small arms, Ahmedzay said.
They also met with an operative named “Hamad” and discussed launching attacks in the Big Apple when they returned home.
“Are we talking about suicide operations, suicide attacks in New York City?” asked federal prosecutor Berit Berger. “And Adis agreed to do this?”
“Yes,” replied Ahmedzay.
Asked what targets were discussed, Ahmedzay said, “Times Square, Grand Central Station, Penn Station and the [New York] Stock Exchange.”
Also yesterday, it was revealed that British authorities agreed to cut two years off the 13-year prison sentence of would-be shoe bomber Saajid Muhammad Badat in exchange for his upcoming testimony against Medujnanin.
A pal of Detroit shoe bomber Richard Reid, who tried to blow up a Paris-to-Miami flight on Dec. 22, 2001, Badat was supposed to be on a trans-Atlantic flight on the same day from Amsterdam but backed out at the last second.