Bill Gertz, Washington Free Beacon

The White House sharply curbed a major counterterrorism drill scheduled for Tuesday in Washington that was designed to test the federal government response to threats of car bombs attacks and a chemical weapons strike on the Metro subway system.

The exercise, code named Eagle Horizon 2014, was cut back instead to small-scale communications checks within federal agencies. The transfer of government functions through groups of emergency personnel located at remote secure locations as part of so-called “continuity of government” operations was scrapped, according to Obama administration security officials.

Disclosure of the curtailed exercise comes as [Al Qaida] recently issued new threats to conduct car bomb attacks in Washington. Details of the car bombing campaign were contained in the latest issue of the English-language magazine “Inspire,” published by the Yemen-based Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. …

“Inspire Magazine’s goal is to empower Muslim youth. … In this section, we give you strength, power and intelligence. Believe me, using car bombs gives you all that,” the magazine said in a section called “open source jihad.”

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