Former Obama DOJ official likens Boston Marathon bombs to 2009 NYC subway bomb plot

misstripleem | 6:30 PM on April 15, 2013

Matthew Miller is the Obama administration’s former DOJ Director of Public Affairs. While many observers have refrained from calling the Boston Marathon bombings a terrorist attack, Miller didn’t mince words.

The 2009 NYC subway bomb plot involved jihad operatives based in the U.S. Flashback:

A former airport shuttle driver accused of buying beauty supplies to make bombs for an attack on New York City subways pleaded guilty Monday, admitting he agreed to conduct an al Qaeda-led “martyrdom plan” because of U.S. involvement in his native Afghanistan.

Najibullah Zazi told a judge the terror network recruited him to be a suicide bomber in New York, where he went to high school and once worked a coffee car just blocks from the World Trade Center site.

The Afghan native pleaded guilty to conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction, conspiracy to commit murder in a foreign country and providing material support for a terrorist organization. He faces a life prison sentence without parole at a sentencing in June.

The plea apparently came as a direct result of government pressure to squeeze information out of Zazi, reports CBS News correspondent Armen Keteyian — pressure in the form of recent arrests or indictments of family and associates. Four in the last two months, including his uncle and father.

“I would sacrifice myself to bring attention to what the U.S. military was doing to civilians in Afghanistan,” Zazi said in court.

The Associated Press learned earlier this month that the jailed Zazi had recently volunteered information about the bomb plot in the first step toward a plea deal. His cooperation suggests prosecutors hope to expand the case and bring charges against other suspects in one of the most serious terrorism threats in the U.S. since Sept. 11, 2001.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the terror investigation is ongoing.

Among other things, Zazi admitted that he brought the explosive triacetone triperoxide or TATP to New York on Sept. 10, 2009, as part of plan to attack the subway system.