Foiled al-Qaida Attackers Caught Red-Handed With WMDs

Two members of an al-Qaida cell connected to top terror master Abu Musab al-Zarqawi have been caught in Jordan with chemical weapons and poisonous gas for a planned attack that Jordanian officials say would have killed up to 20,000 people.

The officials told the London-based newspaper al-Hayat on Friday that the al-Qaida plotters planned to launch a WMD attack against a Jordanian Military Intelligence installation, the U.S. Embassy in Amman and a government building in the country.

According to the Israeli newspaper Maariv, the al-Qaida terrorists managed to smuggle three cars packed with explosives into Amman. Jordanian security forces found a chemical charge in one vehicle.

"The bomb, had it been detonated, could have affected people in a one-kilometer radius and cause the deaths of up to 20,000 people," Jordanian officials told Maariv.

According to United Press International, the al-Qaida car was intercepted just 75 miles from the Syrian border and "carried explosives, a chemical bomb and poisonous gas."

The discovery of the al-Qaida WMD plot is sure to renew speculation that some of Saddam Hussein's missing weapons of mass destruction were hidden in Syria before the U.S. attacked in March 2003, and have now found their way into al-Qaida's hands.

As of Saturday morning, the White House had not commented on the al-Qaida WMD plot and its possible ties to Iraq.

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