Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri

Monday, October 12, was the ninth anniversary of al Qaeda’s suicide attack on the USS Cole. Seventeen American sailors were killed in the attack. It is worth remembering that the mastermind of the operation, Abd al Rahim al Nashiri, is currently held at Guantanamo. Much of the media’s coverage of al Nashiri has been centered on the fact that he was waterboarded and subjected to other so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques” (EITs). Much less attention has been paid to the plots Nashiri was working on when he was captured in November 2002, and how those plots were stopped. Here is how the DOD’s short biography of Nashiri recounts the attacks that didn’t happen: