TERROR IN THE U.S. - AT 9:11 A.M. ET:  The second big story today is terror within the U.S.  CNN actually got hold of a surveillance tape showing one of the suspects in the Colorado/New York case buying large quantities of hydrogen peroxide from a beauty-supply store.  That is a main ingredient of a powerful type of bomb.  (No doubt his lawyer will argue that he wanted to be well stocked for years of hair coloring.)  Even The New York Times is conceding that this appears to be the most serious domestic terror case in years:

WASHINGTON — Since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, senior government officials have announced dozens of terrorism cases that on closer examination seemed to diminish as legitimate threats. The accumulating evidence against a Denver airport shuttle driver suggests he may be different, with some investigators calling his case the most serious in years.

Documents filed in Brooklyn against the driver, Najibullah Zazi, contend he bought chemicals needed to build a bomb — hydrogen peroxide, acetone and hydrochloric acid — and in doing so, Mr. Zazi took a critical step made by few other terrorism suspects.

If government allegations are to be believed, Mr. Zazi, a legal immigrant from Afghanistan, had carefully prepared for a terrorist attack. He attended a Qaeda training camp in Pakistan, received training in explosives and stored in his laptop computer nine pages of instructions for making bombs from the same kind of chemicals he had bought.

COMMENT:  And remember, there were arrests in unrelated cases in Illinois and Texas.

Combined with the Iran story, national security is back on the front page.  And Barack Obama must deal with issues in which he has never shown passionate interest, and in which he has largely been a mess.

September 25, 2009