On certain corners of the blogosphere, there's concern over a report that al-Qaeda may be readying an attack to coincide with Ramadan 2006. Check out Ace, Jawa, HotAir. And here's the gist, from Gateway Pundit:

Osama bin Laden is planning to carry out new, more destructive attacks inside the United States, and there is someone working on this terror plot currently in the US, according to Hamid Mir, the famed Pakistani journalist who obtained the only post-9/11 interviews with Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri. In an interview quoted on the website of the al-Arabiya television network, Mir spoke about his last trip to Afghanistan and his meeting with al-Qaeda members and Taliban leaders.

In his interview with Al.Arabiya.net, Mir said that the al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters referred to attacks targeting the US-led coalition forces during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan which begins on 24 September, and that the al-Qaeda leader, Osama bin Laden was in "good" health during a meeting he had recently with the Taliban leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar.

Mir also said that bin Laden has assigned a man named Adnan Al-Shukri Juma to carry out a new attack within the US which is intended to be larger than the 11 September, 2001 attacks. According to Mir, Adnan Jumaa has smuggled explosives and nuclear materials into the US through the Mexican border over the last two years and is hiding somewhere in America where the FBI has not been able to locate him...

It's probably nothing, and hopefully, in a few weeks, we can all laugh about how silly it was for Jim to be nervous about an attack right about now.

I'm particularly skeptical of any talk of a "nuke." A dirty bomb, however, would probably be manageable, and it wouldn't even take that much radioactivity to cause a panic.

We didn't discuss this too much during the 9/11 anniversary, but I'll bet a big reason that there hasn't been a successful attack is that we now have a much more vigilant public.

So let's just keep our eyes open, keep our eyes peeled for this guy, and if you remember running across him, give the FBI a call. It sounds like a commenter on Ace's thread actually ran across him in Austin, Texas in February.

UPDATE: A friend who is familiar with these kinds of issues offers a bit of skepticism about rumors of al-Qaeda preparing an attack. This person says that as far back as 2001, there have been persistent rumors among the badguys that "the next big one" is just around the corner. The rumors always have the same characteristics - everything is in place, they're waiting for one person, one order, one signal or date to launch the attack, the attack will have a bigger death toll than 9/11 and will use, variously, biological weapons, chemical weapons, nukes, or dirty bombs. And, of course, so far they've been just that — unfounded rumors.

This friend notes that the trigger for the attack keeps getting pushed back - the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, then Iraq, then Ramadan or some other holiday, then the elections, then this anniverary, or that anniversary, etc. He concludes that while we can never completely discount any threat, rumors with similar characteristics have been floating around for years. He suspects this is a jihadist urban legend, designed to keep up their morale.

He's probably right, and I hope he's right. But let's keep our eyes open for this guy just in case.