The Saudi national arrested Thursday in Texas for allegedly planning terrorist attacks bought some of his bomb-making chemicals from a Roswell company, according to court documents.
Khalid Ali-M Aldawsari, 20, was to appear in a Texas federal court Friday to answer charges of attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction. Investigators say his plans may have included bombing the Texas home of former President George W. Bush.
Aldawsari used the Internet to purchase explosives-making materials from Roswell-based Qualichem Technologies. The company did not return several messages left by the AJC seeking comment.
Federal authorities began investigating Aldawsari last month when the North Carolina company became suspicious about an attempt to buy 10 500 ml bottles of 80 percent concentration of phenol, a “toxic chemical… which can also be used to make the explosive Tri-Nitro-Phenol, also referred to as T.N.P.,” according to a document filed in federal court in Texas.
Aldawsari never received the phenol, according to an affidavit filed to secure a search warrant. Carolina Biological Supply in Burlington, N.C., would not ship the chemical to individuals or residences.
He had already succeed in buying another chemical used to make T.N.P. According to the affidavit, Qualichem Technologies shipped 30 liters of nitric acid, to him at a freight facility at a cost of $448.36., in December.
Initially Aldawsari had put down his apartment in Lubbock as the shipping address, but Qualichem e-mailed Aldawsari that it could not “ship this product to an apartment because of haz mat restrictions” on the product, the affidavit said.
The package from Georgia shipped on Con-way Freight on Dec. 14. FBI agents found that package and invoice when they searched Aldawsari’s apartment on Feb. 14, according to the affidavit.
Messages left on the Qualichem voicemail Thursday night and Friday were not returned. Public records show Qualichem is owned by 40-year-old Joseph Zajac. The company was incorporated in Georgia in 2004 and in Kentucky in 2005 but the only active registration now is in Georgia as of June 13, 2007, records show.
Records show Aldawsari came to the United States in September 2008 to attend Texas Tech University. In January he transferred to South Plains College.
The affidavit filed in court describes Aldawsari’s planning and determination to set off explosions in New York City and at dams and nuclear power plants and at Bush’s Dallas home and the homes of three former military personnel who were assigned to at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
The affidavit said his plans included renting a car, loading it with explosive and leaving it in different places in New York to go off during the rush hour. He also allegedly researched the possibility of hiding explosives in dolls and baby carriages.
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