Author claims Al Qaeda planned to gas New York's subway system

June 18, 2006

A new book claims that Al-Qaeda made plans to gas the New York subway system in 2003. According to extracts due to be published in next week's Time magazine, the author of The One Percent Doctrine, Ron Suskind, asserts that Al-Qaeda's number 2 cancelled the attack 45 days before it was due.

Suskinds book states "U.S. intelligence learned of the plot from a laptop computer belonging to a Bahraini jihadist captured in Saudi Arabia in early 2003."

The book continues, "The computer contained plans for an easily constructed and concealed device that releases deadly hydrogen-cyanide gas using a remote trigger."

The CIA built a prototype of those designs shown on the computer and then showed it to the United States President, George W. Bush. The President then ordered an alert to all levels of the US government.

Al-Qaeda had planned to put them in the subway cars and other strategic places.