***update: new Zawahiri tape released***

Drudge is headlining the story–and I also just received the mass e-mail from ABC News’s p.r. arm–about a reported al Qaeda plot based in Iraq to send terrorists to the U.S. on student visas. Just like the 9/11 hijackers:

Sources tell ABC News that the plot may have involved moving between 10 and 20 suspects believed to be affiliated with al Qaeda in Iraq into the United States with student visas — the same method used by the 19 al Qaeda terrorists who struck American targets on Sept. 11.

U.S. officials now require universities to closely track foreign nationals who use student visas to study in the United States. University officials must report international students who fail to arrive on campus or miss class regularly.

In August, the FBI and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement alerted intelligence agencies and state and local law enforcement about 11 Egyptian students who had failed to report to their classes at Montana State University. The students were ultimately apprehended.

Still, despite the heightened precautions, some security analysts fear that skilled terrorists — handpicked because of their clean records and because they are carefully trained — could still slip through an academic setting.

The plot was discovered six months ago, roughly the same time that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, was killed by coalition forces. Sources tell ABC News that the suspects involved in the effort to launch the U.S. attack were closely associated with Zarqawi.

The story underscores the need to remain vigilant on the student visa tracking front. After the 9/11 attacks, Congress took belated steps to shore up the neglected tracking system. Various interest groups whined about the costs and burdens, and have lobbied to repeal the law. With Democrats in charge now, it’s up to the GOP to defend the tracking system from being undermined.

Of course, if our intelligence and homeland security agencies were working more closely to keep terror suspects out of the country in the first place (see how Khalid Mohammed got in), we wouldn’t have to depend on a functional interior tracking system to find them after they slipped through the front door.

Flashback: “The Open Door: How Militant Islamic Terrorists Entered and Remained in the United States, 1993-2001.”