Less than a week after the bombing at the Boston Marathon, Representative Peter
King called for law enforcement to focus on radical Muslim communities and put aside
what is “politically correct.” To support his argument, he talked about 16 terror threats
against New York since September 11, 2001.

I didn’t realize there had been that many, so I decide to check them out. Today
and tomorrow, I want to summarize what I found. Let’s today look at what happened in
New York just the few years after 9/11.

In 2002, Iyman Faris planned to cut the Brooklyn Bridge’s support cables at the
direction of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. He was arrested and sentenced
to 20 years in a federal prison. A year later, al-Qaeda planned to release cyanide gas in
the New York City’s subway system, which carries more than 5 million passengers on an
average weekday.

In 2006, Uzair Paracha was sentenced to 30 years in a federal prison for
attempting to help an al-Qaeda operative enter the U.S. and blow up gas tanks. That same
year, Dhiren Barot was sentenced to life in prison by a UK court after pleading guilty to
planning attacks both in the UK and the U.S., including the New York Stock Exchange.
Shahawar Matin Siraj and James Elshafay planned to place explosive devices at a
subway station in Manhattan. In 2006, the FBI uncovered a plot involving an attack on a
commuter train tunnel connecting New York and New Jersey. Also that same year, four
men plotted to detonate the jet-fuel storage tanks and supply lines for John F. Kennedy
Airport.

In a series of three trials spanning 2008 to 2010, eight men were convicted in
Britain of attempting to simultaneously detonate explosives in seven airlines traveling
from London to several North American cities, including New York.

These are just the list of known attacks or planned terrorist plots against New
York. It reminds us that we still face a threat from radical Muslims.