Posted on 06/17/2006 2:35:12 PM PDT by MamaDearest
Exclusive Book Excerpt: How an Al-Qaeda Cell Planned a Poison-gas Attack on the N.Y. Subway The plot was called off by Bin Laden's No. 2 only 45 days from zero hour, according to a new book by Ron Suskind SUBSCRIBE TO TIMEPRINTE-MAILMORE BY AUTHORRelated Blogs: Click here for blog postings from around the web that are related to the topic of this article.
Posted Saturday, Jun. 17, 2006 Al-Qaeda terrorists came within 45 days of attacking the New York subway system with a lethal gas similar to that used in Nazi death camps. They were stopped not by any intelligence breakthrough, but by an order from Osama bin Laden's deputy, Ayman Zawahiri. And the U.S. learned of the plot from a CIA mole inside al-Qaeda. These are some of the more startling revelations by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Ron Suskind, whose new book The One Percent Doctrine is excerpted in the forthcoming issue of TIME. It will appear on Time.com early Sunday morning.
U Al-Qaeda terrorists came within 45 days of attacking the New York subway system with a lethal gas similar to that used in Nazi death camps. They were stopped not by any intelligence breakthrough, but by an order from Osama bin Laden's deputy, Ayman Zawahiri. And the U.S. learned of the plot from a CIA mole inside al-Qaeda. These are some of the more startling revelations by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Ron Suskind, whose new book The One Percent Doctrine is excerpted in the forthcoming issue of TIME. It will appear on Time.com early Sunday morning.
U.S. intelligence got its first inkling of the plot from the contents of a laptop computer belonging to a Bahraini jihadist captured in Saudi Arabia early in 2003. It contained plans for a gas-dispersal system dubbed "the mubtakkar" (Arabic for inventive). Fearing that al-Qaeda's engineers had achieved the holy grail of terror R&D — a device to effectively distribute hydrogen-cyanide gas, which is deadly when inhaled — the CIA immediately set about building a prototype based on the captured design, which comprised two separate chambers for sodium cyanide and a stable source of hydrogen, such as hydrochloric acid. A seal between the two could be broken by a remote trigger, producing the gas for dispersal. The prototype confirmed their worst fears: "In the world of terrorist weaponry," writes Suskind, "this was the equivalent of splitting the atom. Obtain a few widely available chemicals, and you could construct it with a trip to Home Depot – and then kill everyone in the store."
The device was shown to President Bush and Vice President Cheney the following morning, prompting the President to order that alerts be sent through all levels of the U.S. government. Easily constructed and concealed, mass casualties were inevitable if it could be triggered in any enclosed public space.
Having discovered the device, exposing the plot in which it might be used became a matter of extreme urgency. Although the Saudis were cooperating more than ever before in efforts to track down al-Qaeda operatives in the kingdom, the interrogations of suspects connected with the Bahraini on whose computer the Mubtakkar was discovered were going nowhere. The U.S. would have to look elsewhere.
Conventional wisdom has long held that the U.S. has no human intelligence assets inside al Qaeda. "That is not true," writes Suskind. Over the previous six months, U.S. agents had been receiving accurate tips from a man the writer identifies simply as "Ali," a management-level al-Qaeda operative who believed his leaders had erred in attacking the U.S. directly. "The group was now dispersed," writes Suskind. "A few of its leaders and many foot soldiers were captured or dead. As with any organization, time passed and second-guessing began."
And when asked about the Mubtakkar and the names of the men arrested in Saudi Arabia, Ali was aware of the plot. He identified the key man as Bin Laden's top operative on the Arabian Peninsula, Yusuf al Ayeri, a.k.a. "Swift Sword," who had been released days earlier by Saudi authorities, unaware that al-Ayeri was bin Laden's point man in the kingdom.
Ali revealed that Ayeri had visited Ayman Zawahiri in January 2003, to inform him of a plot to attack the New York City subway system using cyanide gas. Several mubtakkars were to be placed in subway cars and other strategic locations. This was not simply a proposal; the plot was well under way. In fact, zero-hour was only 45 days away. But then, for reasons still debated by U.S. intelligence officials, Zawahiri called off the attack. "Ali did not know the precise explanation why. He just knew that Zawahiri had called them off."
The news left administration officials gathered in the White House with more questions than answers. Why was Ali cooperating? Why had Zawahiri called off the strike? Were the operatives planning to carry out the attack still in New York? "The CIA analysts attempted answers. Many of the questions were simply unanswerable."
One man who could answer them was al-Ayeri — but he was killed in a gun battle between Saudi security forces and al Qaeda militants, who had launched a mini insurrection to coincide with the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Suskind quotes a CIA operative as questioning whether it was an accident that the Saudis had killed the kingpin who could expose a cell planning a chemical weapons attack inside the U.S. "The Saudis just shrugged," the source tells Suskind. "They said their people got a little overzealous." .S. intelligence got its first inkling of the plot from the contents of a laptop computer belonging to a Bahraini jihadist captured in Saudi Arabia early in 2003. It contained plans for a gas-dispersal system dubbed "the mubtakkar" (Arabic for inventive). Fearing that al-Qaeda's engineers had achieved the holy grail of terror R&D — a device to effectively distribute hydrogen-cyanide gas, which is deadly when inhaled — the CIA immediately set about building a prototype based on the captured design, which comprised two separate chambers for sodium cyanide and a stable source of hydrogen, such as hydrochloric acid. A seal between the two could be broken by a remote trigger, producing the gas for dispersal. The prototype confirmed their worst fears: "In the world of terrorist weaponry," writes Suskind, "this was the equivalent of splitting the atom. Obtain a few widely available chemicals, and you could construct it with a trip to Home Depot – and then kill everyone in the store."
The device was shown to President Bush and Vice President Cheney the following morning, prompting the President to order that alerts be sent through all levels of the U.S. government. Easily constructed and concealed, mass casualties were inevitable if it could be triggered in any enclosed public space.
Having discovered the device, exposing the plot in which it might be used became a matter of extreme urgency. Although the Saudis were cooperating more than ever before in efforts to track down al-Qaeda operatives in the kingdom, the interrogations of suspects connected with the Bahraini on whose computer the Mubtakkar was discovered were going nowhere. The U.S. would have to look elsewhere.
Conventional wisdom has long held that the U.S. has no human intelligence assets inside al Qaeda. "That is not true," writes Suskind. Over the previous six months, U.S. agents had been receiving accurate tips from a man the writer identifies simply as "Ali," a management-level al-Qaeda operative who believed his leaders had erred in attacking the U.S. directly. "The group was now dispersed," writes Suskind. "A few of its leaders and many foot soldiers were captured or dead. As with any organization, time passed and second-guessing began."
And when asked about the Mubtakkar and the names of the men arrested in Saudi Arabia, Ali was aware of the plot. He identified the key man as Bin Laden's top operative on the Arabian Peninsula, Yusuf al Ayeri, a.k.a. "Swift Sword," who had been released days earlier by Saudi authorities, unaware that al-Ayeri was bin Laden's point man in the kingdom.
Ali revealed that Ayeri had visited Ayman Zawahiri in January 2003, to inform him of a plot to attack the New York City subway system using cyanide gas. Several mubtakkars were to be placed in subway cars and other strategic locations. This was not simply a proposal; the plot was well under way. In fact, zero-hour was only 45 days away. But then, for reasons still debated by U.S. intelligence officials, Zawahiri called off the attack. "Ali did not know the precise explanation why. He just knew that Zawahiri had called them off."
The news left administration officials gathered in the White House with more questions than answers. Why was Ali cooperating? Why had Zawahiri called off the strike? Were the operatives planning to carry out the attack still in New York? "The CIA analysts attempted answers. Many of the questions were simply unanswerable."
One man who could answer them was al-Ayeri — but he was killed in a gun battle between Saudi security forces and al Qaeda militants, who had launched a mini insurrection to coincide with the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Suskind quotes a CIA operative as questioning whether it was an accident that the Saudis had killed the kingpin who could expose a cell planning a chemical weapons attack inside the U.S. "The Saudis just shrugged," the source tells Suskind. "They said their people got a little overzealous."
Bump for later read; this looks fascinating.
Wonder what those other "strategic locations" would have been??????
Are they going to make this a cover story on the actual magazine, like they did with their Global Warming scaremongering?
It looks fascinating, all right, but a couple of things bother me.
First, It's written by one of the left wingers from Time, Incorporated. So, who knows what axes he has to grind?
Second, I don't want to spend any money on a book that would support the liars at Time and put money into the pockets of their left-wing, treasonous owners.
Third, did the administration approve of these leaks, or is this yet another example of traitors at the CIA leaking sensitive stuff to their left-wing contacts in the media?
Perhaps these suspicions are unjustified, but after the way Time has behaved over the past fifty years and more, I think there are good grounds to be suspicious.
Thanks Time for alerting the terrorist to a cia operative within Al Qaeda....
Please FReepmail me if you want on or off my ‘miscellaneous’ ping list.
Rove set em up to make them look bad, it's not their fault. /s
2003 Flashback:
Preparations for possible attacks gear up
Saturday, February 8, 2003 Posted: 10:37 PM EST (0337 GMT)
http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/02/08/threat.level/
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Transportation security was increased nationwide on Saturday and health care officials were urged to be vigilant for symptoms of bio-chemical contamination, a day after the nation raised its terrorism threat level a notch to "high."
New York City; eastern Virginia; Portland, Oregon; and Atlanta, Georgia -- host of this year's National Basketball Association All-Star Game -- were beefing up security under the alert warning issued Friday. New flight restrictions are planned for airspace around Washington, D.C., starting Monday.
-snip-
Of possible concern could be attacks involving chemicals, such as ricin, cyanide, or organophosphates and/or radiological dispersal devices (RDD), and dirty bombs," a letter from Virginia officials said.
Vote for the Democrat Party (Ha-Ha). They will protect us just as Bill and Hillary Clinton did on 911 (Ha-Ha)!!! Can you imagine any American dumb enough or insane enough to cast a vote for the Democrat "Traitor/Treason" Party? The filth, vermin and scum of humanity that makes up the current Democrat Party would have had massive rejoicing if thousands of New Yorkers were poisened to death in the NYC sybway system. America, you better wake up, and rip the beating heart out the treasonous low life called Democrat by voting them all out of office and into the black hole of evil from whence they all came!!!
How can this be .. I thought there were no WMD .. or so says the liberals
Exactly. The enemy gets much of its intelligence from open sources.
Exactly. Current Democratic leadership and those seeking it are ALL anti-homeland security and blind as a bat concerning the danger Al Qaeda poses. Now about liberal blather about Zarqawi not being such a bad guy (you know, the typical what are we doing in Iraq and when are we getting out rhetoric. As our President said, better to fight it there than here.
If this information is true, it purports Al Qaeda membership is here on our shores, ready to do the will of their leadership (albeit thousands of potential "leaders"). Just because Zarqawi is dead, doesn't mean leadership is no longer functional!
Zawahiri didn't call it off because of something Kerry or Murtha said....that's for sure.
Sounds less than impressive to me. Sodium cyanide plus hydrochloric acid is just the old reliable San Quentin recipe. Drop the cyanide pellets into the acid, plop plop, fizz fizz, smell the apricots, and choke and croak! A subway car could make a serviceable green room, with seating for a few dozen instead of just two, but it escapes me how the "invention" solves the gas distribution problem to enable a larger attack.
These terrorists are really stupid. They should dump nitric acid in a toilet followed by ammonium hydroxide. The result will be a white cloud of N2H2- hydrazine. The first bum that lights a ciggie in this cloud won't be found. Hydrazine is a cheap rocket fuel. Boom!
To me cynaide smelled more like almonds.
Good find jimbo...
Snip: July 22, 2005 - Searching Bags in Subways The New York City police will begin randomly searching people's bags on subways, buses, commuter trains, and ferries.
"The police can and should be aggressively investigating anyone they suspect is trying to bring explosives into the subway," said Christopher Dunn, associate legal director at the New York Civil Liberties Union. "However, random police searches of people without any suspicion of wrongdoing are contrary to our most basic constitutional values. This is a very troubling announcement."
More on the plot from Newsweak...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13385543/site/newsweek/
The counter-terrorism officials also confirmed Suskind’s reporting that U.S. intelligence indicated that the subway attack was called off personally by Zawahiri. Though the officials said U.S. intelligence was still not certain why the attack had been cancelled, one former official said some feared that Zawahiri had cancelled the subway attack because Al Qaeda was planning something even more deadly and spectacular inside the United States—an event that, if planned, so far has not materialized.
And more from Newsweak...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13385543/site/newsweek/page/2/
On one key point, however, current and former officials familiar with the threat disputed Suskind’s account. The officials said there was no reason to believe that the Al Qaeda team assigned to the attack was still on the loose somewhere inside the United States. In fact, NEWSWEEK sources said, most U.S. officials believe the team had exited U.S. borders. “The notion that the cell is still in the U.S.…is not the case,” said one senior local-law enforcement official familiar with the matter. Suskind reiterated to NEWSWEEK that his sources say there is "no evidence" that the terror team has left the country. He said that anyone who claims otherwise is "not properly sourced." Suskind declined to comment further on the contents of the book.
I can think of a reason why Zawahiri might have called off the attack.
If the New York subway and other targets were attacked with cyanide, essentially chemical warfare, 45 days after "early 2003", we would have been on the eve of, or at war with Iraq. That would have raised the real possibility of mushroom clouds over RGFC divisions.
Al Qaeda obviously retains the technology though.
I wonder how large an attack it would take for pressure on Musharraf to open the Pak border to US troops?
This is unbelievable. Putting "Ali" in harm's way is never a consideration with the MSM.
Except if you consider a packed NYC ruh hour subway car probably has at least 100 passengers on board.
bump
If it succeeded in killing 1 Million Libs in NYC it'd certainly be jake with the NYT, no surprise here Hell if it killed a bunch of NYT employees it'd be jake with the NYT. NO SURPRISE!!!!
Suskind is low life piece of garbage.
RON SUSKIND is a Bush Basher . Bush-Bashing Books Due Out Mimicking the lead-up to the 2004 elections, when publishers flooded bookstores with books bashing President Bush, more anti-Bush books are due out this summer – just before Congressional elections.
Two years ago, "Against All Enemies” by former anti-terrorism chief Richard Clark was highly critical of the Bush administration’s counterterrorism efforts, and "The Price of Loyalty” by RON SUSKIND chronicled former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill’s disillusionment with the Bush White House. Both hit the top of the bestseller list.
Now Suskind has another book about to be published, "The One Percent Doctrine: Deep Inside America's Pursuit of Its Enemies Since 9/11,” which focuses on U.S. intelligence failures, USA Today reports.
Other forthcoming books include:
# "Oath Betrayed” by Stephen Miles, a medical professor who cites "medical complicity" in "the abuse and neglect" of inmates at U.S. prisons in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
# "The End of Iraq” by Peter Galbraith, a fellow at the Center for Arms Control. The book’s subtitle is: "How American Incompetence Created a War Without End.”
# "What Terrorists Want” by Louise Richardson, a Harvard lecturer who insists that Bush's war on terror will fail because of an ignorance of history.
# "Is Iraq Another Vietnam?” by Robert Bingham, a Vassar College professor who maintains that U.S. policymakers haven’t learned the lessons of Vietnam.
Bernadette Malone of Sentinel, a conservative imprint, told USA Today that the wave of anti-war books reflects "the insular, liberal mind-set of most New York publishers. They think we're losing the war, that it's hopeless, a fool's errand . . . I, and a lot of other people, disagree."
That may be so, but the psychological effect of such an attack would be far greater than the actual physical casualties.
Off topic: A terrific new freeper, Ikez78, has uncovered some interesting information; it's fully sourced here:
Big news last night in the Saddam - al Qaeda connection. al Baghdadi is a man leading the insurgency in Iraq currently. He was a Republican Guard officer for Saddam, companion of Zarqawi since the start of the war AND HAS BEEN FRIENDS WITH BIN LADEN SINCE MEETING HIM IN AFGHANISTAN http://markeichenlaub.blogspot.com/2006/06/abu-abdullah-rashid-al-baghdadi-former.html
Off topic: A terrific new freeper, Ikez78, has uncovered some interesting information; it's fully sourced here:
Big news last night in the Saddam - al Qaeda connection. al Baghdadi is a man leading the insurgency in Iraq currently. He was a Republican Guard officer for Saddam, companion of Zarqawi since the start of the war AND HAS BEEN FRIENDS WITH BIN LADEN SINCE MEETING HIM IN AFGHANISTAN http://markeichenlaub.blogspot.com/2006/06/abu-abdullah-rashid-al-baghdadi-former.html
Hi MamaDearest.
Now I see exactly how the phrase "continue on the trained Manhattan" fit into the al qaeda scheme of things. The phrase came up many times in jihadi forum translations. This was both before and after the Madrid bombings.
BTW, nice to run into you off TM!
Gee ... looks like a major connection there
And comments from Chris Matthews on that news?
Only if pigs are flying :-)
Look elsewhere? That would mean we'd have to gather intel, like possibly monitoring phone calls made to terrorists from people in the US. We couldn't possibly do that....(rolling eyes)
I think I probably won't be buying either the book or the issue of Time. It's an interesting story but there are such big credibility issues..
I read Time for free on FR, but wouldn't give anyone ten cents for an issue. They have some of those "fake but accurate" problems.
LOL...fiction...great...hoping they believe it then. ;o)
I can't seem to open the blog about the connection between Saddam and AQ.
http://markeichenlaub.blogspot.com/2006/06/abu-abdullah-rashid-al-baghdadi-former.html
I agree to a point. I doubt they could manufacture a strong enough toxin and method of dispersion to cause huge numbers of casualties. It would probably be more like the Aum attack in Japan where many got sick, but the actual deaths were low, due to poor quality homemade nerve toxin and crude dispersal methods.
This, on the other hand, would be a different story. I know the chemical shells found in Iraq are after the planned attack, but that really isn't my point. People like to say there were no WMDs, but there were. After that, they say there were no stockpiles to justify the invasion. Well....a single drop of this type nerve toxin can kill. There are a lot of drops in 17 shells. People would rethink 'stockpile' if something like this were ever realeased in a NYC metro station.
I shudder to think what would have happened if the Dems were in control of the White House conducting policy in their typical "head in the sand" mode.
It worked for me; I just tried it.
http://markeichenlaub.blogspot.com/2006/06/abu-abdullah-rashid-al-baghdadi-former.html
Maybe they didn't want Bush to be re-elected. They were hoping for a Dem, and then they would carry out their attack.
I'm guessing that the CIA didn't gather this info...it came from a outside agency (like Germany's BND or the French secret service). This story left numerous holes and unexplained items.
As for the attack being called off...there is an odd circle around Al Qaeda consisting of Iran, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan...with various political and religious leaders exerting a bit of influence over Ossama and his boys. An attack like this would have left the US no choice about invading Pakistan...which second level leadership in Pakistan which is heavily in support of Ossama...may have come up to realize the implications and simply hinted to Ossama that they didn't want their gravey train in Pakistan to come to an end. Afghanistan was a relative cake-walk for the American military...Pakistan would have been a summer picnic in comparison...with almost no military willing to stand up against the US Army or a bombing campaign. I suspect this stern talk with Ossama probably took the operation down...but they still have the weapons and the technology...nothing has changed.
Our borders are completely open and the threat is just as bad today as it was on 9-11. Nothing has changed.
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