The terror triple play

Washington Times:

A 24-year-old shuttle driver was charged Thursday in New York with conspiring to use bombs as "weapons of mass destruction," and two other men were arrested in Dallas and Illinois on bombing charges.

Federal officials said a Jordanian man planned to bomb a Dallas skyscraper. They arrested Hosam Maher Husein Smadi after he put a decoy device - he thought it was a bomb - outside the 60-story Fountain Place. It was given to him by an undercover agent.

Michael C. Finton was charged with planning to bomb the federal courthouse in Springfield, Ill.

The cases are unrelated to each other and to the case against Najibullah Zazi, the 24-year-old shuttle driver at the Denver airport who was indicted in New York.

Products more closely associated with hairdressers than holy warriors were key to Mr. Zazi's plot to unleash a mass-casualty bombing campaign against Americans, federal authorities said in court papers filed with an indictment of Mr. Zazi unsealed Thursday.

But those same products - which authorities say contained key ingredients to the bombs Mr. Zazi planned to make - alsoplay a key role in the prosecution the government has undertaken against Mr. Zazi.

Federal authorities, who charged Mr. Zazi on Thursday with conspiring to use the bombs as "weapons of mass destruction," say that surveillance video footage and receipts show Mr. Zazi and others who have not been identified publicly bought from beauty supply stores around Denver large quantities of products containing hydrogen peroxide and acetone, which is found in nail polish remover.

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There is a reason why terrorist operate in cells and are usually unaware of other operations. If one is caught he can't reveal the other plots he is not aware of. While there is no direct connection and possible no indirect connection, having multiple plots going at once is part of the MO of al Qaeda. The 9-11 plot involved four planes, so we may still be missing another plot, plus others working on the various plots. The Zazi plot appears to be the more sophisticated and the one where other conspirators may have been involved. His use of the internet to buy supplies to build the bomb may have given his plot away.

It does appear that the President's Cairo speech was overrated in terms of halting Islamic terrorism. It also raises significant questions about his determination to release terrorist from Gitmo.