U.S. Details Case Against Terror Suspect

In March 2000, Padilla told U.S. officials, he made a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia, where he met an unidentified terrorist recruiter. Padilla made his way to Kandahar, Afghanistan, where his terrorist training allegedly began. The FBI obtained a copy of Padilla's training camp application, completed under an alias and found in a binder with more than 100 others, according to the summary.

At the al Farouq camp that fall, he was trained in firearms, communications, surveillance, explosives and other skills. During this time he met Atef, then al Qaeda's military commander. The two would meet several times, including a session in July or August 2001 when Atef asked Padilla to blow up apartment buildings in the United States, the government alleged.

His partner in that first mission was another al Qaeda operative, Adnan G. el Shukrijumah, a trained pilot and one of seven al Qaeda associates named in the warning issued last week by Attorney General John D. Ashcroft. According to the summary released yesterday, Padilla and Shukrijumah -- who had known each other in the Miami area -- could not get along, and their mission was scrapped.

Shortly after Atef's death in November 2001, Padilla and an unnamed accomplice approached Zubaida with a plan to "travel to the United States and detonate a nuclear bomb they learned to make on the internet," according to the government documents. Zubaida arranged for Padilla and his accomplice to propose the idea to Mohammed.

But both Zubaida and Mohammed believed plans to use nuclear or radioactive material were impractical, and the two al Qaeda leaders steered the volunteers toward blowing up apartment buildings instead. Mohammed envisioned as many as 20 simultaneous explosions, probably in New York, but left the details up to Padilla, the summary says.

According to one version of the plan, involving three high-rise apartment buildings, "they would rent two apartments in each building, seal all the openings, turn on the gas and set timers to detonate the buildings simultaneously at a later time," the summary said.

Padilla insists that "he returned to the U.S. with no intention of carrying out the apartment building operation," according to the government document. "However . . . Padilla does admit that he accepted a terrorist mission from al Qaeda, trained for that operation, and then traveled to the U.S."

Comey said that FBI and Defense Intelligence Agency personnel conducted the interrogations and Padilla was not mistreated.

Staff writers Charles Lane and Susan Schmidt and research editor Margot Williams contributed to this report.