The Case Of The Dirty Bomber

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In March Abu Zubaydah was captured in Pakistan. A month later, he hinted to his FBI and CIA interrogators that he had talked to people who wanted to put together a dirty bomb, says a U.S. official. He provided no details, but agents started comparing intelligence as well as material from safe houses they had raided. Out popped Padilla's name, the official says. They then matched the name to a passport photo of Padilla and checked the identification with Abu Zubaydah, who confirmed it. The chase was on.

The CIA caught up with Padilla in Cairo in early May, where officers learned he was planning to fly to the U.S. When he boarded his connection in Zurich, bound for Chicago, he was trailed by FBI agents. FBI officials, including Director Robert Mueller, had debated whether to continue following Padilla in hopes of turning up accomplices. But they could not risk losing him, sources tell TIME, as they had a couple of times during his far-flung journey, so they took the more cautious approach. After Padilla deplaned in Chicago, customs officers pulled him aside not far from the baggage carousel. In a secondary screening room, FBI agents identified themselves and took Padilla into custody. He appeared neither surprised nor angry, says a federal agent. During the next month, the feds tried and apparently failed to build a case against Padilla that would stand up in court. On Sunday, June 9, the day before Padilla could have been released under laws protecting U.S. citizens from indefinite detention, President Bush approved Padilla's reclassification as an "enemy combatant." He was transferred after midnight to the brig of a South Carolina naval base.

On Monday morning Ashcroft held his hastily arranged press conference in Moscow. He alarmed Americans and roiled the markets by describing Padilla as a "known terrorist" pursuing an "unfolding terrorist plot"--leaving the impression that other bombers were still at large. He said, wrongly, that a dirty bomb "can cause mass death and injury." White House officials fumed at what one called Ashcroft's "grandstanding." The officials concede they approved Ashcroft's statement but complain they were given it only at the last minute--and didn't anticipate his overly dire tone.

If the Administration was confused about how to handle and describe Padilla, it was because the al-Qaeda threat keeps changing--the enemy keeps appearing in different guises. Padilla was an unlikely attacker, a small-time crook with grand plans. He doesn't fit the profile, but perhaps that's the point. There is no profile anymore.

--Reported by Massimo Calabresi, Sally B. Donnelly, Elaine Shannon, Mark Thompson, Douglas Waller and Michael Weisskopf/Washington; Tim Padgett, Ghulam Hasnain and Jeanne DeQuine/Sunrise; and Noah Isackson, Ron Stodghill II and Maggie Sieger/Chicago