B-Plus For Explosives Knowledge, F For Physics

Authorities are moving to break up a terrorist ring that aimed to blow up the Holland Tunnel:

The FBI has uncovered what officials consider a serious plot by jihadists to bomb the Holland Tunnel in hopes of causing a torrent of water to deluge lower Manhattan, the Daily News has learned.
The terrorists sought to drown the Financial District as New Orleans was by Hurricane Katrina, sources said. They also wanted to attack subways and other tunnels.

Counterterrorism officials are alarmed by the “lone wolf” terror plot because they allegedly got a pledge of financial and tactical support from Jordanian associates of top terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi before he was killed in Iraq, a counterterrorism source told The News.

It’s not clear, however, if any cash or assistance was delivered.

The News has learned that at the request of U.S. officials, authorities in Beirut arrested one of the alleged conspirators, identified as Amir Andalousli, in recent months. Agents were scrambling yesterday to try to nab other suspects, sources said.

They didn’t indicate how many people were the target of the international dragnet but said they were scattered all over the world.

“This is an ongoing operation,” one source said.

U.S. agents were allowed to take part in the interrogation of Andalousli, a source said.

The alleged bombers had a small but significant obstacle standing in the way of their ultimate goal — basic physics:

Any plot to flood lower Manhattan by blowing up the Holland Tunnel is doomed to fail, experts say — because it would have to defy the laws of physics.

If the Hudson River surged into a ruptured tunnel, experts told the Daily News, the water would only rise to its own level — and might not even reach street level in the city.

“It might flood the Holland Tunnel, but that’s all it’s going to flood,” said Allan McDuffie, an Army Corps of Engineers expert on New York flood patterns. “It’s not going to get any higher than the level of the surrounding water.”

The sidewalk at the entrance to the Jersey-bound Holland Tunnel is exactly 10 feet above sea level, federal maps show.

The lowest points in the surrounding Tribeca neighborhood are the same height — along Canal St. from the West Side Highway to Wooster St., and in a nest of streets surrounding the Soho Grand hotel.

But even though Canal St. runs the route of an old canal, flooding experts say it’s only vulnerable to flooding from heavy rains or coastal storms — not from the river.

“There are ways that the city could get flooded, especially lower Manhattan, but I don’t think this is one of them,” said Irwin Redlener, head of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University and author of the forthcoming “Americans at Risk.”

“It seems a little far-fetched. It’s not like the water is above the island,” Redlener said of the plot. “It doesn’t quite make sense.”