[John H K]

I've always felt the test theory was nonsensical.

DRY RUNS are a different deal, as we know the 9/11 hijackers took the flights they later hijacked.

And hate to burst your bubble, but people have trotted out "It was a TEST!" for pretty much every single incident that people thought/hoped was a terror attack in the last 2 1/2 years, but turned out not to be. It's a theory that's a lot older than a week :-).

No point in wasting people in "tests" when they get caught.

Remember, AQ really doesn't have all that many people to work with...especially remotely competent ones. You're looking at hundreds at best.

And the negative of alerting security when caught massively outweighs whatever could be "learned" from a so-called "test."

[CyberAnt]

As my Pastor always used to say .. you never have to worry about a wild fire because there's always a wet blanket to put it out!!

[HangThemHigh]

You've got a point, I was also thinking they would not want to sacrifice valuable resources, after all, cold blooded killers who are also willing to blow themselves up are not all that common.

But, do you think the "test cases" might be lukewarm Islamofascists, not willing to take the big plunge and thus no great loss if caught? The real bad guys would need to make sure the test person was not traceable back to themselves, but that shouldn't be all that difficult.