The NYC Terror Bomb Plot

While President Bush has said that state and local authorities were given the information needed to make whatever decision they deemed necessary, someone at DHS continues to pontificate that the decision to go to a higher level of alert was unwarranted because the information was not corroborated by other sources.

That's little comfort to NYC officials who have gotten specific time, place, and manner information about the terror plot. In fact, the plot is supposed to be timed for Sunday, October 9. Does anyone have any idea of the significance of that particular day?

In Iraq, authorities detained a third suspect in the plot and investigated whether a fourth had traveled to New York as part of the scheme, according to a law enforcement official familiar with the case.

The official said the man's trip to New York was described by an informant who had spent time in Afghanistan and proved reliable in past investigations. But the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation, added that authorities had not confirmed whether the fourth man even exists.

Those arrested had received explosives training in Afghanistan, the law enforcement official said Friday. They had planned to travel through Syria to New York, and then meet with operatives to carry out the bombings.

Question: How does one get from Iraq to Afghanistan? Answer: Through Iran, which shares a common border, and a common hatred of the US. This doesn't necessarily mean that the Iranians are actively involved in this particular terror plot, but they may be acting as a conduit to allow jihadis to travel between Afghanistan and Iraq. We already know that a significant portion of foreign fighters have come into Iraq from Iran, so it is not out of the realm of possibility.

UPDATE:
AJ Strata has some more, and notes that the discovery of the terror threat against NYC came because we had troops in Iraq who captured people who had purported knowledge of a terror attack against NYC (specific as to time, place, and manner). Getting out of Iraq too soon means that we lose not only the tactical advantage of having troops on the ground, but the strategic advantage of using troops on the ground to collect intel both through the capture of terrorists and uncovering intel in various means. We also have learned that a third terrorist was captured on Friday who was somehow connected to the NYC bombing threat. A fourth terrorist has thus far eluded capture, though no one is quite sure where this individual is, or even whether he or she exists.

Technorati: NYC, terror threat, subway.