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.
Not very, but I think Chuckie was, in essence, downplaying the good news that the Administration's efforts caught 'em. The way his brain works is that he will say anything, so long as it is not anything positive about GWB.
its time to start deporting muslim males
There I fixed it.
L
You gotta get the breeders too.....
WoW! That's gotta be very scary. I think I'd buy a boat and forget taking anything in the way of mass transit, or even better, I'd move far out into the country like I did. I'm soooo glad I live in the country now. I can see anyone coming down my road and that's the way I like it.
Welcome to Free Repbulic! :o)
We are at war with an enemy we can't readily identify.
We've knocked them down royally here and in other countries, but they are elusive and among us.
Everyone must live with some form of concern for the foreseeable future. Fortunately, you have been protected to date.
I hope that continues.
Agreed.
Why, I'm surprised at you-- that's discrimination!
Deport the muslim females too.
Don't give them any ideas.
Welcome to FR.
the Libs still won't get it...their thinking is such circular logic!
Just finished a great book...."Blood Stripes"...anyone else read it? Awesome. Very depressing his take on how this country nowadays is just so unpatriotic and has no concept that we are AT WAR.
Yep. An "expert" consulted by the NY Times says its political:
In Zeal to Foil Terror Plots, Cases May Be Missing Something Important, Lawyers Say
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/09/us/09plot.html
"Carl W. Tobias, a law professor at University of Richmond in Virginia who tracks terrorism cases, said the modest evidence disclosed so far in some recent cases related to the ability of the suspects to deliver on their threats had caused him to wonder if politics might be a factor.
" 'There is some kind of public relations gained by making Americans on the one hand feel concerned that the Sears Tower in Chicago or some tunnel in Manhattan is targeted, yet on the other hand feel comforted that the government is on top of it,' he said."
The terrorists thought that they could create a KATRINA New Orleans scenario in lower Manhattan, but they had no factual topographical info. Manhattan is NOT at all like New Orleans!
"the Libs still won't get it...their thinking is such circular logic!
Just finished a great book...."Blood Stripes"...anyone else read it? Awesome. Very depressing his take on how this country nowadays is just so unpatriotic and has no concept that we are AT WAR."
I haven't read it, but I feel that I have. Or as sKerry would say: "I actually read it before I didn't read it."
Thanks, I will look for it on Amazon.
We can convert the females to christianity </Ann Mode>
None of this would be happening if Al Gore would have won...
Sure we can. They are almost exclusively muslim males between the ages of 20 and 45. Most of them have mustaches. They largely come from a handful of Arab countries in the middle east.
Oh there are some recent convert nutbags but even those are fairly easy to pick up on. They're largely prison converts with a few odd hangers on to round the bunch out.
You are right about them being among us though. But what we lack isn't the means but the political will to round them up and kick them the hell out.
L
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