Posted on 07/08/2006 1:46:55 PM PDT by SleekMaid
Federal law enforcement officials tell ABC News a plot designed to use 15 to 20 suicide bombers on one commuter train as close to Sept. 11 as possible was well underway.
The specific target was the PATH commuter trains that run in a tunnel under the Hudson River into New York City.
"This is a plot that would have involved martyrdom, explosives and certain of the tubes that connect New Jersey with lower Manhattan," said Mark Mershon, Assistant Director-in-Charge of the FBI New York Field Office. "We're not discussing the modality behind, beyond that."
But law enforcement officials say the plotters had already accessed detailed blueprints and drawings of the PATH tunnels, available on the internet.
And like the London bombers, the plan was to load backpacks with explosives.
All 15 to 20 bombers were to board one car and detonate when the train was under the river, according to officials.
"There's no question that they are vulnerable. With the right amount of explosives, the tunnel could be compromised," said Gerry Hauer, former Director of New York City's Office of Emergency Management and now an ABC News consultant.
The FBI identified the ringleader as 32-year-old Assem Hammoud of Lebanon.
Lebanese officials arrested him in April at the request of the FBI, and he reportedly has now admitted he was about to go to Pakistan for training at an al Qaeda camp. "We know that he has acknowledged pledging a bayat or allegiance to Osama bin Laden, and he proclaims himself to be a member of al Qaeda," said Mershon.
Security was stepped up today at the PATH tunnels.
Officials said today two other alleged plotters had also been arrested, but at least five of them remain at large.
"This shows we are able to disrupt terror plots such as this," said New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly. "Secondly, it shows that New York remains in the terrorists' cross hairs."
Officials say the plot was uncovered more than a year ago by U.S. and Canadian intelligence agents watching a jihadist internet chat room.
Officials say the suspects communicated freely, thinking that no one could track them.
Similar chat rooms were used by the alleged terrorists arrested recently in Toronto and Miami.
"The chat rooms have literally exploded since 9/ll because we are now right in the midst of electronic jihad," said Jack Cloonan, former senior agent on the FBI's bin Laden squad in New York and now an ABC News consultant.
Officials say none of the plotters was in the United States but that several of them were nearby in Canada. Others had planned to travel to New York from Saudi Arabia.
Officials say even after their leader was arrested in April, the plotters continued to make plans, and officials say they can't be sure the plan is fully stopped, even now.
The idea of giving ideas is a complicated one. We need to think about how we can be attacked, so we can spend limited dollars protecting against the most likely attacks, but also to prepare people for other attacks we won't stop (so they won't let it bother them so much), and to figure out how to work around the resulting damage.
But in discussing the possibilities, we also give people ideas.
For example, during the sniper attacks in DC, I really thought the constant coverage would give terrorists the idea to replicate this on a nationwide scale. I can tell you our area was effected far beyond reason during those three weeks, with real economic and "freedom" effects. If there had been 20 terrorists carrying out that attack, and if they had worked to NOT get caught instead of working to get credit, we could easily have seen hundreds, if not thousands of dead people.
And when California was burning a couple of years ago, because it was so dry, it occured to me that a terrorist could load up a car with molotov coctails, and simply drive down the highway in the middle of the night throwing them every five miles or so. A simply attack, but possibly devastating.
And of course now we know that a single well-placed car bomb could have destroyed much of New Orleans -- and if it was done in clear weather in the middle of the night, thousands would have died in the flood waters.
That guy looks completely "normal" to me...
I've seen some crazy things on those trains...I would probably be RELIEVED if that guy sat next to me instead of some of the other goobers on those trains.
Scary.
dont even need bombs to kill...all they need is a few Ak47s that China smuggled in under Clinton and start killing people on the train.
Since nobody in NY/NJ can carry a gun, it would be a massacre. And then the calls for gun control from the MSM would start.
These people are scum..should hang them from lightpoles.
I do not think that word means what you think it means.
It's interesting to contemplate - how long would it take the ever-silent "moderate Muslims" to start publicly denouncing the fascists among them if we started deporting them ALL today? Oh wait - I must be crazy - they would just run immediately to the ACLU. Um, Never Mind ...
in a TV interview I saw the NY police commissioner say
1. This was leaked prematurely to a newspaper - they didn't have everybody rounded up yet and didn't want the story published.
2. None of the suspects had visited the U.S. yet
3. They had no operations and not methof yet - it was planning only.
....though it might help explain that loud noise from my computer room overnight.....
LOL!
Cute!
:)
Thanks for remembering that...
Yes, Springman...Kerry would be very dangerous if he had any real power.
Amen my Friend, Amen.
but but but Chuckie Schumer is sure the big problems can be solved by examining containers for nukes after theya re already here.
Thanks for the link! Gorgeous area...beautiful pictures!
North Jersey has had a tremendous growth spurt and gentrification since 9/11 especially Hoboken and Jersey City. My brother and I spent a lot of time there in the late '90's. After 9/11, my brother was of the opinion that a lot of the check cashing places were muslim run and would be valid sites for government investigation and watching.
Agreed. Several months ago, we heard oblique suggestions from Washington that several terrorist attempts had been stopped. Now, suddenly, we are getting media reports on specific attacks that have been thwarted.
Great work to the authorities that derailed the psycho-terrorists, but I gotta question the reason we are suddenly hearing more details on these planned attacks.
I strongly suspect politics rather than irony.
The fear factor alone created by such a deed would have caused considerable chaos.
Would a strike like that flood any of NYC?
And ID and close all saudi wahabi-funded mosques and schools in the U.S. ASAP.
According to Wikipedia, lower Manhatten is about 10 feet above sea level, which means that all the subway tunnels, and all the basement levels of buildings are below sea level
It's possible that they were also planning to see what could be disabled if the tunnels were full of water, and if there were one or more points where a backpack full of explosives could blow a hole between some important building's sub-level and a flooded tunnel
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