Back in January, Osama bin Laden offered the United States a truce. Well, not just a truce, but also a threat:

The voice in the tape said heightened security measures in the United States are not the reason there have been no attacks there since the Sept. 11, 2001 suicide hijackings. Instead, the reason is "because there are operations that need preparations, and you will see them," he said.

That sounded like total BS to me, until I ran across someone's comment (lost the link) pointing out that if bin Laden threatened us and then nothing happened, he'd lose face among his supporters. That does suggest he really is planning another attack in the United States.

I didn't give the matter much more thought until about March 10, when some Islamic websites were carrying warnings from Rakan Ben Williams about upcoming attacks by al-Qaida. They're supposed to be very big.

"there will be no one to analyze and investigate, because the mind and the heart will be unable to comprehend it... This will not be a single operation, but two; one bigger than the other, but we will begin with the big one and postpone the bigger one, in order to see [how] diligent the American people is [in preserving] its life. If it chooses life, [it must] carry out the demands of the Muslims, and if it chooses death, then we are its best perpetrators."

That sounds big and bad, doesn't it? It gets worse:

"Let me now inform you why we opted to inform you about the two operations and your inability to stop them before they are carried out. The reason is simple: You cannot uncover or stop them except by letting them be carried out. Furthermore, the best you could do would be to accelerate the day of carrying out the operations. In other words, if we schedule the operation to take place tomorrow, the best you could do is to make it happen today."

That part really scares me. In order for the operation to be unstoppable, it has to be something like a really big bomb that is already in place and is guarded by al-Qaida members who are ready to set it off at the first sign that our counter-terror forces have found them.

Even that problem is surmountable, however, by surreptitiously evacuating the surrounding area. In order to be really unstoppable, the bomb would have to be so large that an effective evacuation would be hard to organize. It would have to be a nuclear bomb.

Ben Williams goes on:

"O you helpless Americans, especially those living in States far away from Washington, D.C.!" he says. "Your country is comprised of many states that should not have anything to do with Muslims. Take the state of Arizona for example; what does this state have to do with killing Muslims in Palestine, Afghanistan and Iraq? What interest is it of theirs serving, helping, and siding with the Jews and Israel? If some members of your Congress and Senate are being used as Jewish tools manipulated by Israel, why do you bear the consequences? Why do you bring death and destruction to your homes and lives in an apparent sacrifice for a handful of dishonest men and women?"

More bad news, those of us in flyover country are not necessarily safe. This dovetails with the nuclear bomb theory quite nicely: It might be hard to get a nuclear bomb into a major target city like Washington D.C. because of all the security. The police there have been pulling over radioactive cancer patients for months now. But not every city is as well-secured as Washington.

"The operations are ready to go, we are just waiting for orders from the commander in chief, Osama bin Laden (may Allah preserve him)," it says. "He will decide whether to strike or to hold. We swear by Allah that there are so many tricks and tactical maneuvers that will make your heads spin, by the grace of Allah. You will be brought to your knees, but not until you lose more loved ones and experience significant destruction."

Now that sounds a little off-key to me. I'm starting not to believe this guy. I'm not talking about the use of idioms like "make your heads spin." Ben Williams was born in England and converted to Islam later. He might well talk like that.

No, the odd part is that the plan is in place and they're waiting to see if Osama wants to execute it. That doesn't sound right. People who've looked into the timing of terror campaigns have found that terrorists don't usually wait for just the right moment to launch their operations. They strike as soon as they can.

This almost sounds like someone laying the groundwork for a retreat.

It continues: "Now is the time to wake up and dust off this state of complacency and ineffectiveness to save yourselves and your loved ones from catastrophes sure to come your way. Remove war mongers from positions of power and throw them in prisons, where they belong. Rid yourselves of 'the Jewish pests' that brought nothing to you but adversity and loss of lives and wealth. They have deceived you for many years, it is time now you turn the table on them and make an example out of them. Rid yourselves of media crafters who deliberately kept you in the dark for so long and made a mockery of you before the rest of the world."

The statement calls for a boycott of NBC and CBS because of their Jewish owners. It calls on Americans to watch al-Jazeera and to visit Islamic websites "to get educated."

"Visit Mujahideen web sites to get to know who they are," it suggests. "You will see for yourselves that they are not what your media outlets made you believe they are. If you cannot do that, the least you could do is to watch Al-Jazeera Channel; there you might get 20 percent or less of the truth about the war zones. Resent the corrupted politicians in Washington, D.C. and demand justice, if they do not give in to your demands, you must declare autonomy so you may live in peace and security."

Okay, now this is just sounding goofy. Boycott Jewish-owned television stations? Watch al-Jazeera and visit Islamic websites? This is what we're supposed to do to avoid devastation? There's something strange going on here.

Maybe this is some kind of bluff from someone who has nothing to do with al-Qaida. That would explain the big-attack-then-bigger-attack nature of the operation: Someday, perhaps, al-Qaida will attack in the U.S. again. If and when that happens, Rakan ben Williams can post another message saying "See, there's our big attack, now here's what you have to do to avoid the even bigger attack..."

Actually, now that I think about it, the whole thing was a little less scary than I first thought. People who are planning an actual attack don't usually threaten the victims ahead of time. They just attack. The people who make threats usually do so because they are unable to conduct actual attacks.

That's enough to calm me down.

Until...

The level of "chatter" by al Qaeda operatives is currently as high or higher than in the months prior to 9-11, and the question in many parts of the U.S. and European intelligence communities is not if al Qaeda will strike again, but when. Much of the thinking centers on the near-term. This is also reflected in current corporate security alerts being circulated among elite business establishments.

There are several factors that point to al Qaeda at least having a plan for an imminent attack. The first is the January appearance of Osama bin Laden himself after months of silence. The second is the repeated warnings and boasts from bin Laden, Zawahiri and on al Qaeda web sites of impending action.

Several analysts I have spoken with believe the leadership of the historic al Qaeda would not raise expectations of an attack, especially at a time of intense competition with Zarqawi's operation for the mantle of carrying out international jihad, without something important afoot. The risk of losing credibility is too high....

One corporate risk analysis group reported something else of interest: A March 10 posting on al-Hesbah website, known for posting al Qaeda messages, carried a message from the Global Islamic Media Front. The message gives a final warning to the United States before carrying out what it said would be two devastating attacks. The second attack would not be launched until after Washington had time to respond to the first one, the message said.

While this is clearly propaganda, it is within the Islamic jihad tradition to give an enemy a chance to repent and convert before carrying out an attack, as the Prophet Mohammed did. Bin Laden did this before 9-11 as well, when few were paying attention.

Crap. Not good. Not good.

But then there's this:

It is a scenario reminiscent of the Trojan Horse. Iraq's Interior Minister Bayan Jabr revealed that Iraqi internal security had broken up a plot to place 421 al Qaeda fighters as guards controlling access to Baghdad's International or "Green" Zone. Once in position, the terrorists planned to storm the U.S. and British embassies, take hostages, and wreak havoc.

The Viet Cong used the same idea in Vietnam when they launched the Tet Offensive. The American military cleaned them out pretty quickly, but not before a lot of people were killed, and the American people and politicians lost some of their stomach for continuing the war. Maybe al-Qaida was hoping the same thing would happen again.

If they had pulled it off, that would have been really bad. Maybe that's what all the chatter and threats were about.

I'm beginning to understand why the Chinese thought that living in interesting times was a curse.