By Douglas J. Hagmann
Monday, June 19, 2006al-Qaeda terrorists came within 45 days of attacking the New York subway system with a lethal gas similar to that used in Nazi death camps. 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.
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