IN A STUNNING article in the Washington Post magazine entitled “Bust and Boom,” Matt Brzezinski reports on a terrorist plot in the Philippines that was foiled by Manila police in January 1995. Authorities had been notified about a fire alarm going off in an apartment complex and decided to check it out. When they entered the apartment, they stumbled across a vast array of bomb-making materials–chemicals, watches, and fuses.

One of the suspects, Hakim Abdul Murad, was apprehended while trying to flee (he tripped on an exposed tree root and fell flat on his face). The authorities took him to Camp Crame, just outside Manila. According to Brzezinski, “Philippine intelligence put the screws to Murad. . . . By the time he was handed over to the Americans, interrogators had extracted everything they thought they needed to know.”