This week's disclosure that federal investigators may have thwarted an al-Qaida plot to blow up a Columbus-area mall ought to serve as a wake-up call to citizens. Terrorism could strike in the heartland.

Nuradin M. Abdi, a Somali immigrant, has been in U.S. custody since the day after Thanksgiving, on suspicion that he was plotting with al-Qaida operatives to blow up an unnamed shopping mall in Columbus. He was initially arrested on immigration violations, after having been under investigation for months.

"This plot was foiled while it was still in the planning stages," Bill Hunt, first assistant to U.S. Attorney Greg Lockhart, told reporters this week. Authorities said they arrested him when they did because they did not want to take chances that the plot might be timed to be carried out during the peak Christmas shopping season.

In recent weeks, revelations of the Abu Ghraib abuses and intelligence lapses have created some public skepticism about how efficiently the war on terror has been carried out. But this arrest is a victory that ought to be celebrated. Obviously, federal investigators have been working on the case for a long time, and any blow to al-Qaida is a victory for the United States.

On Monday, the government released details of Abdi's case after his indictment on terrorism-related charges. The evidence against Abdi includes the fact that he traveled to Ethiopia for military training to prepare to set off a bomb. Officials said they discovered what they call Abdi's ties to terrorism after they captured former Columbus trucker Iyman Faris, who later admitted to a plot to cut support cables on the Brooklyn Bridge and derail trains in New York and Washington, D.C.

Abdi's family denies he's a terrorist and say that he loves America. They paint a picture of a hard-working provider for his family. This may be true, and Abdi must be presumed innocent under our system. We trust in our judicial system to get to the truth of the matter.

During an editorial board meeting Tuesday, officials with the Cincinnati office of Council on American-Islamic Relations noted that it is wrong to link terrorism to mainstream Islam, or to assume that every suspect with a Middle Eastern-sounding name is automatically guilty.

The wound created by 9-11 lingers in the hearts and minds of many Americans and understandably makes us skittish. Before 9-11, the thought that terrorists would fly commercial airliners into buildings in America was the stuff of sci-fi thrillers. Yet, it happened. Those who committed the crimes had planned them far in advance and trained at American flight schools. So the idea that somebody would actually plot to blow up an Ohio mall is no longer a stretch of the imagination.