Foiled Again

Only last weekend, we were told of al Qaeda's plot to release poisonous cyanide gas in the New York subway system in 2003.
Ayman Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden's deputy, called it off for reasons that are still unknown to U.S. intelligence officials, according to Ron Suskind's new book, The One Percent Doctrine.

I guess you could call today's news more reassuring. Rather than al Qaeda choosing to back off on a plot to kill Americans, the plan to attack the Sears Tower was foiled thanks to federal officials cracking a terrorist ring.

From The Chicago Tribune:

WASHINGTON -- Federal agents in Miami, in an effort to crack down on an alleged terrorist ring, arrested seven men Thursday who had "aspirations" but "no means" to attack the Sears Tower in Chicago, a senior federal law enforcement source said.

The men had been plotting for an undetermined amount of time but their scheme was thwarted well before there was any threat that could be carried out.

"There was no threat at all," the senior law enforcement source said, referring to the Sears Tower.

FBI agents, along with state and local law enforcement officials, cordoned off an area of Liberty City, a Miami neighborhood, Thursday evening in raids that officials described as a significant terror-related investigation.

FBI Director Robert Mueller, speaking on CNN, said, "I can tell you that we do have an ongoing operation in Miami. We are conducting a number of arrests and searches and we'll have more about that when the operation is concluded, probably tomorrow morning."

Mueller added that "whenever we undertake an operation like this, we would not do it without the approval of a judge. We've got search warrants and arrest warrants and the like."

...Atty. Gen. Alberto Gonzales and top FBI officials are to discuss the case in more detail at a news conference Friday in Washington, D.C.

"They had aspirations...a lot of talking," said the senior federal law enforcement source. "But they had no means."

CNN adds:

Law enforcement sources told CNN that some of the suspects are members of a radical African-American Muslim group and that at least one had taken "an al Qaeda oath." They had carried out surveillance on the Sears Tower and FBI building in Miami, the sources said.

Sources told CNN that the arrests culminated a monthslong undercover operation. The suspects believed they were dealing with an al Qaeda operative, but the person was actually a government informant, the sources said.

...The FBI said one search warrant was executed in a warehouse near a housing project in Liberty City, a predominantly black and low-income area of Miami.

...Residents living near the warehouse told The Associated Press that the men taken into custody called themselves Muslims and had tried to recruit young people.

The men slept in the warehouse, Tashawn Rose, 29, told the AP.

"They would come out late at night and exercise," she said. "It seemed like a military boot camp that they were working on there. They would come out and stand guard."

Even though this plot was in the very early stages, it serves as a reminder that we are at war.

There are people who want to attack us on our soil.

I wonder. Do you think Ramsey Clark grabbed the first flight that he could get to Miami?

Are representatives from Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch rushing to aid the seven men who were arrested?

I hope the facilities where the men are being held have prayer rugs and copies of the Koran on hand.