US recruit reveals Qaeda training techniques during interrogation

Chapters in Vinass odyssey,replete with details on how al-Qaeda uses applications and written evaluations of students,directs terrorist camp life,and trains recruits to handle silencers and build suicide bomb vests,are found in a Belgian defence lawyers transcription of an official summary of parts of Vinas FBI interrogation.

In January,Vinas,26,stood up at a sealed hearing in a Brooklyn court and pleaded guilty to the charges. He admitted to receiving Qaeda training and to providing terror leaders with information that might result in an attack on the Long Island Rail Road.

The summary offers a rare window into the life and training of al-Qaeda recruits living in western Pakistan.

The document details Vinass apparent quick acceptance into the ranks of a terrorist training class just weeks after arriving in Pakistan,his education in explosives and the written evaluations that recruits received after their course work.

Vinas converted to Islam in 2004 and considers himself a member of the Salafi sect,a rigorously fundamentalist strain of Sunni Islam. Until 2007,he attended services at the Islamic Association of Long Island.

On September 10,2007,Vinas boarded a flight to Lahore. He says he placed a call to a different New Yorker,who eventually lead him to the Qaeda training camps.

He went across the border into Afghanistans Kunar province. Upon returning to Pakistan,Vinas was asked to join a unit that carried out suicide bomb attacks. He agreed but al-Qaeda leaders said he needed further religious indoctrination.

In Waziristan,between March and July 2008,he underwent Qaeda education. There were three basic courses,each with 10 to 20 students. The first: an introduction to AK-47,machine gun and pistol. Then came a class in what became Vinas concentration: explosives. The third offered an introduction to rocket-propelled grenades. Soon after Vinas had completed the courses8230; students underwent a written evaluation of their performance during the courses, the interrogation summary notes.

He remained on the border with Afghanistan until October 2008. At that point,he decided to return to Peshawar to find himself a wife. He was arrested by Pakistani agents.

I consulted with a senior al-Qaeda leader and provided detailed information about the operation of the Long Island Rail Road system which I knew because I had ridden the railroad on many occasions, he said,reading from a prepared statement. The purpose of providing this information was to help plan a bomb attack of the Long Island Rail Road system.