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 a 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
weapons of mass destruction, portrays al-Qaeda's leaders as determined
and patient, willing to wait for years to acquire the kind of weapons
that could inflict widespread casualties.