Jose Padilla, the gang member turned jihadist, was convicted of terrorism conspiracy charges for his participation in a South Florida Qaeda support cell.

Jose Padilla, the gang member turned jihadist, was convicted of terrorism conspiracy charges for his participation in a South Florida Qaeda support cell. The key piece of evidence against him was an application to attend a training camp in Afghanistan in 2000 (those jihadist bureaucrats: thorough as the Nazis). But Padilla is better known for his arrest in 2002, for plotting what attorney general John Ashcroft called a dirty-bomb attack, and his detention for three and a half years in a Navy brig as an enemy combatant, beyond the reach of the legal system. When his case was transferred to the courts, the dirty-bomb plot fell by the wayside. We should be glad to lock the murderous thug up for conspiring to commit terrorism, even as we were to imprison Al Capone on income-tax evasion. But we still lack a clear and compelling strategy for fighting enemy warriors on American soil. Let us hope it does not take another 9/11 to inspire one.