FRIDAY, DECEMBER 28, 2001 — Here’s the story: Richard Reid, flying on a Paris-to-Miami American Airlines flight on December 22, tried to set fire to his shoe. When a flight attendant, who grew suspicious after she smelled burning, confronted Reid, he popped a match in his mouth. A few minutes later, he had another try, sparking a frantic 10-minute struggle. We are told it required the muscle of a half-dozen passengers and crew and a couple of shots of calmative to subdue the six-foot-four, 200-plus-pound would-be terrorist.

The explosive packed into a hollowed-out section of Reid’s shoe has been identified as triacetone triperoxide (TATP), a highly volatile substance that has long been the explosive of choice for Middle Eastern terrorists. The amount of TATP Reid was carrying (eight to 10 ounces) was apparently enough to blow a hole in the Boeing 767’s fuselage or even ignite the plane’s fuel tank, above which Reid was sitting. Had things gone according to plan, the 183 passengers and 14 crew on board that plane would have been in big trouble.

Scary stuff, yes. But the incident may give us some cause for comfort.

What do we know about Richard Reid? According to the London Times, Reid was born in the working-class suburb of Bromley, South-East London, in 1973, to an English mother and a Jamaican father. He is said to have been a habitual criminal, a mugger, a thief, who converted to Islam during one of his prison stays. We know that he attended the Brixton Mosque in South London, where he was reportedly recruited by Islamic extremists, who sent him off to one of bin Laden’s terrorist training camps in Afghanistan. In the last year, he is thought to have traveled to Israel, Egypt, and Turkey. In this respect, Reid fits perfectly the profile of the Al Qaeda fighter: stealthy, well trained, and willing to die for the cause. But Mohamed Atta this man is not.

The day before Reid successfully boarded the American Airlines flight, he had been foiled by French airport security personnel. His long matted hair, shifty demeanor, and, according to some passengers, overwhelming stench had given the game away. French authorities questioned Reid for long enough that he missed his plane. American Airlines, demonstrating its commitment to customer satisfaction, put him up for the night in a four-star hotel and he made the next day’s flight.

If the explosive in Reid’s shoe had gone off and the plane had gone down, investigators would have had little chance of determining the exact cause of the explosion. This being the case, terrorists would have found a nifty new way of smuggling bombs on board planes. In this sense, Reid’s mission was extremely important. Which raises an important question: if Reid is indeed linked to the Al Qaeda network, what the hell were these guys doing sending a twit who lacked the wherewithal to even try to blend into the crowd to perform such a crucial job?

For days now, the front pages have been running a mug shot of Reid, 28, who is currently being held at the Plymouth House of Corrections. Look into the face of this man and you can see that this is no hardened, efficient killer. The man in these pictures looks like a bedraggled yokel, a malign simpleton. Reid’s attempt to blow up the American Airlines flight seems to bear this impression out: he bungled his mission to an almost farcical degree.

According to Abdul Haqq Baker, the head of the Brixton Mosque where Reid worshipped (as did the "20th hijacker," Zacarias Moussaoui, another bright spark), there could be as many as 1000 Richard Reids at large in the UK, a hundred of whom may be willing to carry out suicide attacks. But if Reid — described by Baker as a "very, very impressionable" man — is anything to go by, this assessment may not pose quite the threat it first seems.

There’s no doubt that the 19 hijackers who almost brought America to its knees on September 11 were formidable foes. But those guys are dead. If Reid represents the cream of Al Qaeda’s current terrorist crop, then the network is in a sorry state indeed.