And, of course, one of the parties typically acts as a level 1 handler of the “spouse” on behalf of “others”.
It was specifically contrived to seed the meme: “the Islamic radicals gone done it.”
The FBI was, as usual, all over the “plotters” and, allegedly, did not permit the switching out of the real explosives for inert material: that claim came from an FBI asset in/around the group.
It’s worth researching, as it constitutes the psyop preliminaries for the main event in 2001.