Nafis regrets, pleads guilty

A Bangladesh native accused of trying to blow up the Federal Reserve Bank in New York with what he thought was a 1,000-pound car bomb pleaded guilty yesterday to terrorism charges stemming from an FBI sting.
"I had intentions to commit a violent jihadist act," Quazi Mohammad Rezwanul Ahsan Nafis told the judge. "I deeply and sincerely regret my involvement in this case," he said in a soft voice.
The 21-year-old faces a possible life term at sentencing on May 30.
He was charged in October with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction and attempting to provide material support to al-Qaeda. Investigators said in court papers that he came to the U.S. bent on jihad and worked out the specifics of a plot when he arrived.
Investigators said Nafis contacted a government informant, who then went to federal authorities. They said he selected his target, drove a van loaded with dummy explosives to the door of the bank and tried to set off the bomb from a hotel room using a cellphone he thought had been rigged as a detonator. But it was all fake.
He also believed he had the blessing of al-Qaeda and was acting on behalf of it, but he has no known ties to the terrorist group, according to federal officials.
During the investigation, Nafis spoke of his admiration for Osama bin Laden, talked of writing an article about his plot for an al-Qaeda-affiliated magazine and said he would be willing to be a martyr but preferred to go home to his family after carrying out the attack, authorities said.
And he also talked about wanting to kill President Obama and bomb the New York Stock Exchange, officials said.