How A Massive Terror Attack Was Foiled In Iraq

US soldiers provide security during a vehicle checkpoint in Baghdad, 2006. US forces killed six Iraqi security personnel north of Baghdad, Iraqi officials said, in an incident which the American military said was a case of "mistaken fire". (AFP/US Army/File/Staff Sgt. Russel Lee Klika)

US Finds Clues In Bakery To Foil Iraqi Terror Plot
-- Yahoo News/AP

MOSUL, Iraq - Lt. Christopher Hanes knew something was wrong as soon as he stepped into the Friends bakery. The oven was unused, the water tank was empty and a large concrete bin was full of dirt that the two employees claimed was used to cool cakes.

Hanes and his soldiers moved the water tank and found the entrance to a 50-foot tunnel heading straight for the nearby provincial government headquarters.

The U.S. military believes insurgents planned to tunnel underneath the compound's blast walls and blow up the headquarters building. With 250-300 Iraqis working in the governor's office and perhaps hundreds more there for business, casualties from such a blast could have been catastrophic.

Discovery of the tunnel Sept. 1, the first day of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, drove home a message: Sunni militants have been battered but not defeated despite a monthslong operation by U.S. and Iraqi forces to clear Mosul, Iraq's third largest city, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad.

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My Comment: If successful, this terror strike would have rocked Iraq for a long period of time. The sad part of this country is that there are probably dozens if not hundreds of small cells who are striving and/or planning to commit such atrocities.

To catch or kill all of these murderers will take a long time, and while the coalition forces and the Iraqi Government/people will succeed, the costs will be very high.