Al Qaeda Likely Working on a WMD Attack

Al Qaeda is said to be patiently planning an attack on the U.S. with a weapon of mass destruction (WMD), with anthrax being its most likely modality.

A former CIA official has published a report on al Qaeda’s interest in WMDs The report, by  Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, a senior fellow at Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, is likely to required reading for security officials. After September 11, says the report’s preface, Mowatt-Larssen “led the U.S. government’s efforts to determine whether al Qaeda had WMD and to prevent a nuclear terrorist attack on the United States.”

The really unnerving aspect of al Qaeda’s approach, and they no doubt intend it to be this way, is that they are willing to wait years developing plans for whatever sort of attack seems likely to be feasible and do the most damage. That’s why disrupting terrorist capacities, wherever they become manifest, is such a continuing priority.