Al Qaeda's WMD plans for attacking US

Washington Post:

When al-Qaeda's No. 2 leader Ayman al-Zawahiri called off a planned chemical attack on New York's subway system in 2003, he offered this chilling explanation: The plot to unleash poison gas on New Yorkers was being dropped for "something better," Zawahiri said in a message intercepted by U.S. eavesdroppers.

The meaning of Zawahiri's cryptic threat remains unclear more than six years later, but a new report warns that al-Qaeda has not abandoned its goal of attacking the United States with a chemical, biological or even nuclear weapon.

The report, by a former senior CIA official who led the agency's hunt for terrorists' weapons of mass destruction, portrays al-Qaeda's leaders as determined and patient, willing to wait for years to acquire the kinds of weapons that could inflict widespread casualties.

The former official, Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, draws on his knowledge of classified case files to argue that al-Qaeda has been far more sophisticated in its pursuit of weapons of mass destruction than is commonly believed, pursuing parallel paths to acquiring weapons and forging alliances with groups that can offer resources and expertise.

"If Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants had been interested in . . . small-scale attacks, there is little doubt they could have done so now," Mowatt-Larssen writes in a report released Monday by Harvard University's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.

The report comes as a panel on weapons of mass destruction appointed by Congress prepares to release a new assessment of the federal government's preparedness for such an attack. The review by the bipartisan Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism is particularly critical of the Obama administration's actions so far in hardening the country's defenses against bioterrorism, according to two former government officials who have seen drafts of the report.

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I am skeptical that they have much at this point. If they did they would have used it by now. The suggestion that they are waiting for something with a bigger bang does not correlate with the back pack bombs in London and the recent attempts to bring down air craft.

The group is committed to mass murder of non combatants, but they seem to be short of the means at this point. Their affiliate in Yemen has ambitions and they may try again, but as far as casualties go they would be competing with the accidents in Lebanon and Iran this week.

While every loss of life to these religious bigots is a tragedy, the group is struggling to come close to its 9-11 body count.