It appears that this home grown terrorist cell in New York City was never particularly close to seeing their plans come to fruition since they were well-surveilled by law enforcement for quite some time. Which is how it should be. It’s good work by the FBI and the NYPD.
Among other things, I think this is a reminder that while international issues should of course be of some concern to the U.S. government, it’s very difficult to draw a straight line between events in Afghanistan and America’s vulnerability to terrorism. The reason this plot was a danger at all was that the plotters were in the United States of America and the reason it was never that big a danger was that law enforcement was doing a good job and had the situation under control. It’s hard to see how the existence or non-existence of a “safe haven” of some kind on another continent could have made a difference.
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