Shhhh - don't tell anyone: Saddam, the Taliban, and more foiled Al-Qaeda plots

Via Michelle Malkin, here is a fascinating expose of captured Iraqi intelligence documents, many of them outlining progress toward a strategic alliance between the Hussein regime and the Taliban.  Money quote:

We already believe that there are no points of disagreement between us and the Taliban because we are both in one trench facing the world’s oppression.

The link takes you to the analysis section which is at the half-way point in the story; scroll to the top to read the introduction and the complete translated document.  Of course this is simply more evidence to support the already well-established fact that Saddam had sought relationships with Islamic terrorists for well over a decade.

I suppose this means that the Left will now claim that there was no relationship between the Taliban and Al-Qaeda.

And Drudge is linking to a TIME exclusive about an Al-Qaeda plot to release poison gas in the New York City subway system:

U.S. intelligence got its first inkling of the plot from the contents of a laptop computer belonging to a Bahraini jihadist captured in Saudi Arabia early in 2003. It contained plans for a gas-dispersal system dubbed "the mubtakkar" (Arabic for inventive). Fearing that al-Qaeda's engineers had achieved the holy grail of terror R&D — a device to effectively distribute hydrogen-cyanide gas, which is deadly when inhaled — the CIA immediately set about building a prototype based on the captured design, which comprised two separate chambers for sodium cyanide and a stable source of hydrogen, such as hydrochloric acid. A seal between the two could be broken by a remote trigger, producing the gas for dispersal. The prototype confirmed their worst fears: "In the world of terrorist weaponry," writes Suskind, "this was the equivalent of splitting the atom. Obtain a few widely available chemicals, and you could construct it with a trip to Home Depot – and then kill everyone in the store."

The device was shown to President Bush and Vice President Cheney the following morning, prompting the President to order that alerts be sent through all levels of the U.S. government. Easily constructed and concealed, mass casualties were inevitable if it could be triggered in any enclosed public space.

For reasons still unknown, the attack was called-off by Osama Bin Laden's deputy, Ayman Zawahiri.  Perhaps this newly-released information explains the mysterious series of heightened terrorist alerts that became such fodder for liberals and late-night comedians a few years ago.

We can only hope that Zawahiri was influenced by our successful routing of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, and by the redoubled efforts of other foreign governments (including Saudi Arabia) to capture and interrogate terrorist suspects.  And of course by our prayers for the end of terrorism.

The war on terror, as unpleasant as it has been, is working.  We are thinning the ranks of Al-Qaeda, destroying their communications networks, and withering their morale.  With that kind of attrition they will not be major players for much longer.

Thank God.