THE WEEK
Abdullah al-Muhajir, the al-Qaeda terrorist formally known as Jose Padilla, was caught before his Dirty Bomb plot was much more than a gleam in his eye. The incident holds two important lessons. The first is that the fight for homeland security will be won overseas. It is only because the U.S. routed al-Qaeda from Afghanistan, and hunted down some of its remnants in Pakistan, that we were able to capture and interrogate alQaeda big Abu Zubaydah, who provided the intelligence crucial to al-Muhajir/Padilla’s capture. The other is that in preempting terror attacks the U.S. will not he able to operate by the exquisite rules formulated to protect Americans in their dealings with the criminal-justice system. Al-Muhajir/Padilla joined an enemy army, and therefore he is rightly confined to a U.S. military jail, where he will be able to think of his Dirty Bomb in peace and quiet for a good long time.
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