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Alleged shoe bomber reportedly told mother of plan

Richard Reid

BOSTON, Massachusetts (CNN) -- Accused shoe bomber Richard Reid sent an e-mail "will" to his mother telling her he was going to carry out a terror attack "to help remove the oppressive American forces from the Muslim land," government prosecutors say in a court filing Thursday.

"This is the only way for us to do so as we do not have other means to fight them," the papers filed in federal court in Boston quoted him as saying.

In addition, the government says, Reid said after he was arrested December 22 for allegedly attempting to blow up an American Airlines jet that he believed an airplane attack during the holiday season would cause the American public to lose confidence in airline security and stop traveling.

He chose an American jet after the United States began bombing the Taliban in Afghanistan, the court filing says.

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Passengers and crew members on American Flight 63 from Paris to Miami subdued and sedated Reid after, they said, he tried to light a fuse attached to his shoes. The flight was diverted to Boston, where Reid, 28, was arrested.

Federal agents said the sneakers Reid was wearing contained the explosive TATP or triacetone triperoxide.

Reid is asking that a judge dissolve an order restricting his defense attorneys and forbidding them from conveying the content of conversations with him to third parties.

In the Thursday filing opposing that request, the government says Reid remains a danger and cited previously undisclosed details from his statements and the e-mail to his mother.

The government says its investigation "has established that Reid was not unassisted in his effort to destroy Flight 63, and that his choice of a target was a deliberate and calculated act of international terrorism."

An analysis of the explosive devices in Reid's shoes, says the court filing, turned up a human hair and a palm print on paper used to make a detonator. "Forensic comparisons have ruled Reid out as the source of either the hair or the palm print" says the government filing, illustrating that he had help in obtaining the bombs.

Reid prefaced his e-mail to his mother, says the government, by expressing his hope that it would not upset her "as what I am doing is part of the ongoing war between Islam and disbelief, (and as such a duty upon me as a Muslim)."

The e-mail says he is sending the will "so that you can see that I didn't do this act out of ignorance nor did I do (it) just because I want to die, but rather because I see it as a duty upon me to help remove the oppressive American forces from the Muslim land and that this is the only way for us to do so as we do not have other means to fight them."

In his post-arrest statements, says the government, Reid confirmed his travel "from Belgium to Israel, to Egypt, to Turkey, and finally to Pakistan, before leaving that country for an unknown destination on August 14, 2001."

Reid's passport, says the court filing, shows he traveled to Pakistan on a second trip November 20, and left Karachi on a flight to Belgium December 5.

Law enforcement sources say a scout for the al Qaeda terrorist network, Abu Ruuf, is also known to have traveled to those countries and the sources have speculated that Ruuf and Reid are the same man.

The government also says Reid paid the "cash equivalent of $1,800 (U.S.)" adding that despite the money "necessary to fund such travels, Reid had no known source of income during the summer of 2001, or before."

The indictment against Reid alleges he received his training from al Qaeda.

Because of that training, the government alleges, Reid would have known the techniques described in the "Al Qaeda Training Manual." Those techniques describe using "an innocent looking letter" to pass on coded or secret messages.

The manual also instructs al Qaeda operatives to take advantage of prison visitors to communicate and exchange information "with brothers outside the prison," the government says.

The government says it opposes lifting the restrictions on Reid's attorneys because they are not restricted in talking with him and their conversations are not monitored.

The filing says that while Reid's attorneys are honorable and trustworthy, there is a danger "even the most honorable of individuals might become the inadvertent, unknowing and unwitting conduit for the transmission of nefarious messages, even when there is good-faith belief that such communications are being made in pursuit of a client's defense."