The Bronx “martial arts expert” who played bass and was arrested by the FBI last weekend (not for playing bass, for terrorism), boasted that being a musician was “great cover.”

May 31, 2005 — A Bronx man who wanted to set up an al Qaeda training camp in the United States bragged that he could smile at someone one minute and slit the person’s throat the next, court papers reveal.

Tarik Ibn Osman Shah, 42, made the chilling boast in a meeting with an undercover FBI agent April 1, 2004, near Orlando, Fla., according to a criminal complaint unsealed yesterday.

Shah saw a girl nearby looking at him and he smiled back.

The Bronx man, the son of a Malcolm X lieutenant, then turned to the agent and said, “I could be joking and smiling and then cutting their throats in the next second,” the complaint said.

Shah, a professional jazz bassist, brought along his instrument “so as not to bring attention to himself.” Being a musician was a great cover, he said.

In addition to fantasizing about slitting peoples’ throats, and playing jazz bass, Tarik Shah’s other interests apparently included the works of Colorado professor Ward “Little Eichmanns” Churchill:

Shah claimed he and Sabir had been kicked out of a Bronx mosque for trying to teach urban warfare to members.

He also claimed that the U.S. government was training its agents to pose as Islamic fighters, adding that “the Jews were already doing this.”

Shah’s silver Chevrolet Impala was parked outside his Bronx apartment yesterday. In the back seat was a reminder to buy a DVD of Ward Churchill, the Colorado professor who called 9/11 victims “little Eichmanns.”