How an Al Qaeda cell planned a poison gas attack on a NY subway

Time .com ^ | 06-17-06 | Ron Suskind

[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."

[edpc]

Reed = Reid

[P-40]

he should have been fired long before 9/11 occurred.

In a lot of ways he gets misquoted and made to sound critical of just the current administration, when he has been a kind of "Fox Mulder" of terrorism all these years.

Here is how the 9/11 Commission Report puts it.

213 Rice told us she took Clarke’s memo as a warning not to get dragged down by bureaucratic inertia.250 While his arguments have force, we also take Clarke’s jeremiad as something more.After nine years on the NSC staff and more than three years as the president’s national coordinator, he had often failed to persuade these agencies to adopt his views, or to persuade his superiors to set an agenda of the sort he wanted or that the whole government could support.

Or just other stuff that pops up using his name in the search box...

In his testimony,Clarke commented that he thought that warning about the possibility of a suicide hijacking would have been just one more speculative theory among many, hard to spot since the volume of warnings of “al Qaeda threats and other terrorist threats,was in the tens of thousands—probably hundreds of thousands.”18Yet the possibility was imaginable, and imagined. In early August 1999, the FAA’s Civil Aviation Security intelligence office summarized the Bin Ladin hijacking threat. After a solid recitation of all the information available on this topic, the paper identified a few principal scenarios, one of which was a “suicide hijacking operation.”The FAA analysts judged such an operation unlikely, because “it does not offer an opportunity for dialogue to achieve the key goal of obtaining Rahman and other key captive extremists. . . . A suicide hijacking is assessed to be an option of last resort.”19 Analysts could have shed some light on what kind of “opportunity for dialogue” al Qaeda desired.20 The CIA did not write any analytical assessments of possible hijacking scenarios.

In 1998, Clarke chaired an exercise designed to highlight the inadequacy of the solution. This paper exercise involved a scenario in which a group of terrorists commandeered a Learjet on the ground in Atlanta, loaded it with explosives, and flew it toward a target in Washington, D.C. Clarke asked officials from the Pentagon, Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), and Secret Service what they could do about the situation. Officials from the Pentagon said they could scramble aircraft from Langley Air Force Base, but they would need to go to the President for rules of engagement, and there was no mechanism to do so.There was no clear resolution of the problem at the exercise.16

One school of thought, Clarke wrote in this September 4 note, implicitly argued that the terrorist network was a nuisance that killed a score of Americans every 18–24 months.If that view was credited, then current policies might be proportionate. Another school saw al Qaeda as the “point of the spear of radical Islam.” But no one forced the argument into the open by calling for a national estimate or a broader discussion of the threat. The issue was never joined as a collective debate by the U.S. government, including the Congress, before 9/11.

The September 11 attacks fell into the void between the foreign and domestic threats.The foreign intelligence agencies were watching overseas, alert to foreign threats to U.S. interests there.The domestic agencies were waiting for evidence of a domestic threat from sleeper cells within the United States. No one was looking for a foreign threat to domestic targets.The threat that was coming was not from sleeper cells. It was foreign—but from foreigners who had infiltrated into the United States.

[edpc]

I understand what you're saying, but both Rice and Clarke himself seem to support what I was getting at about dismissing him. Rice stated he didn't persuade people to his 'forceful' arguements. Clarke proposed the hijacked, explosive-laden plane scenario and got a "there's no plan for that" response. Instead of saying, "Shouldn't we have one?", it seems there was an "oh, well...." approach. In my view, he's either too passive or incomptent. Someone with either qualities shouldn't have been in his position.

[P-40]

Someone with either qualities shouldn't have been in his position.

Had he pushed to get his concerns into the NIE...things might have turned out differently. Prior to 9/11 that would be going way out on a limb...but it would have helped get the attention he needed.

[edpc]

Attention would have been a start. True, it would have been a bit tough to sell the plane bomb prior to Sept 2001, but it wasn't like the idea was science fiction. Until that time, it was a distant memory of WWII and relegated to Clancy novels, as Debt of Honor portrayed it.

The 9/11 Commission stated part of the problem was a "failure of imagination." Clarke's 1998 scenario blows that away (no pun intended). He clearly imagined a similar attack, but nothing was done to prevent something so plausible. The true failure of 9/11 was beauracratic inaction and obstruction (see the Gorelick Wall).

Getting back to your original point, I sincerely doubt the MSM would dust off Clarke's memo where these chemical attacks are concerned. They're only interested in finding the portions critical of the current administration. Talk about cherrypicking intelligence!

[MarkL]

Zawahiri didn't call it off because of something Kerry or Murtha said....that's for sure.

As I said in an earlier post, I have full confidence that he called it off in order to give Kerry, Murtha, and their ilk more time. The last thing that Al Queda wants to do right now is unite the country against them, effectively neutering the anti-war leftists.

Mark

[John Locke]

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.

You'd also need some means to open the casing itself, and some way to contain the liquid HCN - it's not a gas at room temperature, boiling at about 26C - while it evaporated.

But think - you need 36g of HCl and 49g of NaCN, total 85g, to get a mere 27g of HCN and a residue of 58g of salt. And since HCl is a gas, you need about 60g of water to hold it in solution (40% HCl is "fuming" hydrochloric acid, the strongest you can get). That ups the chemical weight to 145g of which less than 20% is turned into poison. Add the weight of the apparatus itself and you have probably the worst designed weapon of mass destruction ever devised.

And since fuming HCl is harder to handle, and probably more dangerous to the bomb builder, than chilled liquid HCN, and this device looks more like a suicide bomb.

Bottom line: makes no sense to this (former) chemist.

[SideoutFred]

Anyone else just a tad ticked off that we just told Al Queda that we have a mole in their organization.

Or we "had" a mole...probably executed now because of this.

[P-40]

Talk about cherrypicking intelligence!

The MSM has been horrible about this. Poor journalistic practices aside, by presenting the story of 9/11 as simply a failure of one Presidential administration, the public is robbed of the opportunity to be presented with what was a failure over multiple administrations and decades. By understanding 9/11 as just a problem of one administration, the public is left with the impression that a change of administration is all that is needed to prevent another 9/11 and nothing could be farther from the truth than that.

[edpc]

a failure over multiple administrations and decades.

You've got that right. The Iranian Hostage Crisis was probably the beginning for us. I was 11 when that happened, but I had a grasp of the implications. The Iranians waited to release the hostages after Reagan was sworn in, partly to embarrass Carter. Also, I believe the took not of the rising U.S. nationalism during the 1980 campaign. They (and likely many Americans) probably thought Reagan would actually take serious measures.

Given that, I was seriously disappointed when we pulled our forces out of Lebanon after the barrack bombing killed more than 200 Marines. That was the moment and Reagan was the man. I have heard many reasons for the pullout...lack of national interest being one. I think a lot could have been prevented had proper action been taken in '79 or '83. Obviously, it's 20/20 hindsight, but I believe it's true.

The multiple attacks throughout the '90s under Clinton only made terrorists less afraid of serious retaliation. I never bought the whole "proportional response" premise. I hope it's been completely trashed as policy.

[edpc]

the took not = they took note

Need more coffee.

[P-40]

The multiple attacks throughout the '90s under Clinton only made terrorists less afraid of serious retaliation.

Clinton seemed stuck on fighting terrorism in the courtroom using standards of evidence that would survive a legal challenge in the courtroom. Needless to say, Al Qaeda did not have any fear of this approach. President Bush moves the fight to the military arena, where it has always belonged, using evidence acquired by intelligence operations...which may or may not hold up in a court of law if it is even admissible and generally has to be kept secret.

Which ones works best? That is obvious. If we were fighting terrorism the Clinton way we would have at best a handful of terrorists in custody and years of shaky legal work to maybe get a sentence.

[jveritas]

Here you go:

2002 Document: Request For 500 KG Of SODIUM CYANIDE A Precursor For A Chemical Weapon (Translation) http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1637240/posts

[CommerceComet]

>>Anyone else just a tad ticked off that we just told Al Queda that we have a mole in their organization.

We don't know exactly what information the writer is revealing. Ali might have already been compromised, so the information might not have been news to al Qaeda.

There might not be an "Ali". We might have gotten the information from other sources and then created the mole story to create confusion and paranoia in al Qaeda. Maybe they will purge their ranks of "innocent" persons who are suspected of being spies.

On the other hand, the writer might be a dirt bag who revealed a source whose identity should have been better protected.