By Booth Gunter with Brian Levin
On Sept. 8, 2009, Najibullah Zazi a car in Colorado and drove to New York City, where he had spent his childhood. His visit was no social occasion. For two months, he had been buying chemicals from beauty supply stores so that he could make triacetone triperoxide, a highly explosive compound favored by Islamic terrorists and dubbed by them the “Mother of Satan.” Zazi and two friends planned to strap explosives to their bodies, board trains at two of the city’s busiest subway stations — Grand Central Station and Times Square — and blow themselves up during rush hour.