Al-Qaeda Planned US Cyanide Attack
An al-Qaida cell in the United States came within 45 days of launching a cyanide attack on the New York subway system that could have killed as many people as the attacks of September 11, according to a new book given broad credence by American police and intelligence officials. The plan was called off just weeks before it was due to be carried out in 2003. The revelations are contained in a new book excerpted by Time magazine. The attack, masterminded by Saudi militants, was called off by Osama Bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri. Unnamed US officials confirmed their knowledge of the plot to the New York Times. In The Once Percent Doctrine, Pulitzer-prize winning investigative journalist Ron Suskind says CIA officials came to learn about the plot after members of the cell were arrested in Bahrain in February 2003. The plan was allegedly found on one of the computers they had been using. The device they planned to use would have released deadly hydrogen-cyanide gas using a remote trigger, the book says.Top US officials calculated that the casualties would have been almost on a par with the September 11 attacks that killed almost 3,000 civilians. The CIA built a model of the device and showed it to President George W Bush, who put the US government on high alert, the book says. President Bush and his aides were left guessing at the reasons why Zawahiri allegedly cancelled the plan.
"We were aware of the plot and took the appropriate precautions," the New York Police Department's chief spokesman, Paul Browne, told the New York Times newspaper. In his book, Suskind says a Pakistani agent close to the al-Qaeda leadership had pointed US officials to the leader of the Saudi militants, who was later killed in a stand-off with Saudi police.
Sen. Charles Schumer, D-NY, seized on the reported plot by al-Qaida to renew his call for the Homeland Security Department to restore his district's anti-terrorism funds.
"This is just more evidence that what Homeland Security did to us was terribly misguided and just wrong," said Schumer Sunday after the alleged plot to spread cyanide gas in the subway was revealed. "It shows that New York is the prime target, and shows the importance of prior intelligence and of manpower."
Schumer and other New York legislators, as well as state and municipal officials, have pledged efforts to reverse Homeland Security's recent decision to cut New York City's federal anti-terror allocations by 40 percent, some $83 million less than the $207 million it received last year.
- June 19, 2006
This item is closed, it's not possible to add new comments to it or to vote on it
Click here to manage subscription