Urban air freshener

US officials received credible intelligence that al-Qaida operatives had been 45 days from releasing a deadly gas into New York City subways when the plan was called off by Osama bin Laden's second-in-command in 2003, according to a book excerpt released Sunday on Time magazine's Web site.




The informant said that al-Qaida operatives had planned to use a small, easily concealed delivery system to release hydrogen cyanide into multiple subway cars.

According to the investigative report by Pulitzer-prize winning journalist Ron Suskind, an informant close to al-Qaida management told US officials that Ayman al-Zawahri canceled the plan in January 2003, despite the likelihood that the strike would have killed as many people as the Sept. 11 attacks.

Fortunately for us, Al-Zawahri concluded that a sudden release of cyanide gas would most likely only improve the air quality normally found in the NYC subway system.