This ranks right up with going back for the rental truck deposit!

NEW YORK — Afghan-born Najibullah Zazi set up shop in suburban Denver, scouring the Web and visiting beauty supply stores in a hunt for chemicals needed to build bombs for Al Qaeda, authorities charge, calling the alleged plot one of the most significant terror threats to the U.S. since 9-11.

The 12-page memorandum outlining the alleged conspiracy also used the repeated phrase "and others," evidence of a possible Al Qaeda cell plotting a homemade bomb attack on U.S. soil.

Zazi, a 24-year-old coffee cart owner in New York and Denver airport shuttle driver, was charged in New York with conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction. He was to appear in court in Denver on Friday.

Since he was arrested a week ago on a lesser count of lying to terrorist investigators, investigators have fanned out over New York City, going to beauty shops, home improvement stores and neighborhoods Zazi frequented looking for possible accomplices, while the government issued national terrorism warnings for sports complexes, hotels and transit systems.

A law enforcement official told The Associated Press on Thursday that Zazi had associates in New York who were in on the plot. Court papers say that during the summer, Zazi and three unidentified associates bought "unusually large quantities" of hydrogen peroxide and acetone — a flammable solvent found in nail-polish remover — from beauty supply stores in the Denver area, products with names like Ion Sensitive Scalp Developer and Clairoxide.

He searched a Queens home improvement store Web site for another ingredient needed to make a compound called TATP (Triacetone Triperoxide), the explosives used in the London bombings that killed over 50 people, prosecutors said.

Within days of returning from Pakistan in early 2009, he moved to the Denver suburb of Aurora, where he used a computer to research homemade bomb ingredients and to look up beauty supply stores where he could buy them, according to prosecutors.

A second law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation said associates of Zazi visited Colorado from New York to help him buy the chemicals, using stolen credit cards to make the purchases before returning to New York.

Security video and receipts show that some of the purchases were made near a Colorado hotel, according to court papers. On Sept. 6 and 7, Zazi checked into a suite at the hotel with a kitchen and a stove, the papers say, and tried to contact an unidentified associate "seeking to correct mixtures of ingredients to make explosives."

"Zazi repeatedly emphasized in the communications that he needed the answers right away," the papers said. "Each communication" was "more urgent than the last."

FBI explosives testing later found residue in the vent above the stove, authorities said.

Patriot Act saves the day!

On Sept. 8, court papers say, Zazi searched the Internet for home improvement stores in Queens before driving a rental car for a two-day trip to the city. The visit triggered a series of searches in Denver and New York City over the past two weeks, and netted backpacks, cell phones and a scale at a home where Zazi spent the night.

Beauty supply store employees in New York and the Denver suburbs said authorities had been there recently asking whether anyone had come in buying a lot of hydrogen peroxide or acetone.

At Beauty Supply Warehouse in suburban Denver, Paul Phillips said a co-worker told investigators he had sold chemicals to Zazi. Company president Karan Hoss said the firm turned over security video of a man matching Zazi's description to the FBI. A check of sales found that someone bought a dozen 32-ounce bottles of a hydrogen peroxide product in July. More was purchased in late August, Hoss said.

Dishonorable mention goes to these F-wads....

In unrelated terrorism cases elsewhere around the country Thursday:

— Michael C. Finton, a 29-year-old man who idolized American-born Taliban soldier John Walker Lindh, was arrested after attempting to detonate what he thought was a bomb inside a van outside a federal courthouse in Springfield, Ill., officials said. FBI agents had infiltrated the alleged plot months ago.

— A 19-year-old Jordanian was arrested after placing what he thought was a bomb at a downtown Dallas skyscraper, federal prosecutors said. The decoy device was provided by an undercover FBI agent. Federal officials said the case against Hosam Maher Husein Smadi, who is charged with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction, is unrelated to the Illinois case.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,555340,00.html