ESCALATION - AT 6:14 P.M. ET:  We've been following the ongoing terror investigation in the United States, apparently the largest in years.  Now there's a major arrest, one that reminds us how close we often come to disaster:

A Denver airport shuttle bus driver who was arrested there last weekend was charged in Brooklyn on Thursday morning with conspiring with others to make and use bombs.

The driver, Najibullah Zazi, 24, had been arrested with his father in Denver and accused of making false statements. But his indictment in Brooklyn on Thursday was far more serious. Mr. Zazi was charged with one count of conspiring with others, who are not named, to use one or more weapons of mass destruction, including bombs or other explosives.

The authorities said Mr. Zazi bought chemicals that could be used to make bombs from Denver-area beauty supply stores and had bomb-making instructions on his laptop computer. They said he had mixed chemicals in a suburban Denver hotel room in the weeks before his arrest. Attorney General Eric Holder released a statement saying that the government believed that “any imminent threat” from the case had “been disrupted.”

And...

“We are investigating a wide range of leads related to this alleged conspiracy,” Mr. Holder said. “We believe any imminent threat arising from this case has been disrupted, but as always, we remind the American public to be vigilant.”

COMMENT:  Good to see the attorney general involved.  I would have liked to have seen, amidst all the appeasement at the UN, a statement from the president himself.  After all, the city where he's been hanging out, New York, was the target of the plot. 

September 24, 2009