When pondering whether al-Qaeda has sleepers, agents, sympathizers, or other affiliated folk within the United States, the safe answer is, “probably, yes.”

Well, the magic Eight-ball can upgrade the answer to “signs point to yes.” Today’s disturbing, but not unexpected news from the New York Sun:

E-mail addresses for American individuals were found on the same password-protected e-mail chains used by the United Kingdom plotters to communicate with Qaeda handlers in Europe, a counterterrorism official told The New York Sun yesterday. The American and German intelligence community now believe the secure e-mail chains used in the United Kingdom plot have provided a window into an operational Qaeda network in several countries.
“Because of the London and Glasgow plot, we now know communications have been made from Al Qaeda to operatives in the United States,” the counterterrorism official said on condition of anonymity. “This plot helps to connect a lot of stuff. We have seen money moving a lot through hawala networks and other illicit finance as well.” But this source was careful to say that at this point no specific information, such as names, targets or a timeline, was known about any particular plot on American soil. The e-mail addresses that are linked to Americans were pseudonyms.

Now, all this tells us that the al-Qaeda handlers are likely in contact with some folks within the United States, not that a plot is coming tomorrow, or the next day, or whenever. I presume that our intelligence agencies are looking for the last messages sent before the U.K. plotters executed their plan to see if they can determine the “everything is ready” and “go” signals.

By the way – does this sound like a sensitive leak? Or is it moot, as we would expect the al-Qaeda types to presume that as soon as the U.K. plotters were arrested, their e-mails would be scooped up and compromised?

Either way, the issue of fighting terrorism is unlikely to disappear from the campaign trail for any significant length of time.