WASHINGTON, 8 July 2006 — The FBI has discovered a terrorist plot to bomb New York’s Holland Tunnel and flood the Wall Street financial district. The FBI said it thwarted preliminary plans by a group with possible ties to Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, the slain leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq.

The city’s Holland Tunnel was apparently the target of the attack by the terrorists who wanted to blow it up in an effort to flood Lower Manhattan — the financial heart of the Big Apple. The plotters also allegedly discussed attacking subways in the city and other tunnels. The 79-year-old tunnel runs under the Hudson River between New Jersey and Manhattan and carried almost 34 million vehicles in 2005.

The plot would have involved a suicide bombing on a subway tunnel, an FBI official said. “This is a plot that would have involved martyrdom, explosives and certain of the tubes that connect New Jersey with Lower Manhattan. We’re not discussing the modality beyond that,” Mark Mershon, assistant director-in-charge of the FBI New York Field Office, told a news conference.

The FBI said it had identified eight “principal players” involved in the plot. Three of them have been taken into custody overseas. “We have them largely identified,” Mershon said.

Only one — a Lebanese national described as the “mastermind” of the plot — has been formally charged, Mershon added.

Lebanon said it arrested Amir Al-Andalousi, the alleged mastermind. “After questioning he confessed... that he was planning to travel to Pakistan for four months training and that the date for the attack was decided to be late in 2006,” a Lebanese Interior Ministry statement said.

FBI agents said they monitored Internet chat rooms used by extremist groups and discovered the plot. The flooding in New Orleans from Hurricane Katrina reportedly inspired the idea.

It’s unclear how far along the planning for the alleged scheme was, but unidentified counterterrorism officials cast doubt on the plot to flood the financial district, saying that the Holland Tunnel is below ground and protected by bedrock, concrete and cast-iron steel, the Daily News said.

The experts also said the plan was unfeasible as even if the tunnel were to crack, the financial district is above the level of the Hudson River.

Rep. Peter King said that federal law enforcement and New York police have been monitoring a plot to attack New York’s mass transit system for at least eight months. King said he has received regular intelligence briefings as chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee. But he said he did not publicly disclose what he learned to protect the integrity of the investigation. “This is ongoing, that’s why I’ve said nothing about it until now,” King said. “It would have been better if this had not been disclosed.”

Seven men were charged in the United States last month with conspiracy to blow up the landmark Sears Tower in Chicago and the FBI buildings in Miami and four other cities as part of a pledge to Al-Qaeda to wage war against America. US officials said the plot never went beyond the earliest stages.