Anthrax hair samples don't match

Comment: So that means he would have had to have been away from home for at least 6 or 7 hours (or whatever the driving time). He was married.

Folks who assumed he drove when he took leave were mistaken as to get the 9/18 postmark mailing was after 5 p.m.

“Greendale School”

”Greendale” School is the return address of the anthrax letters to Senators Daschle and Leahy. In December 2002, the Arabic paper London Al-Sharq al-Awsat reported that correspondence on Zawahiri’s computer (which was obtained by the Wall Street Journal) shows Zawahiri uses “school” as code for Egyptian Islamic Jihad. The letter was found on Al Zawahiri’s computer. The letter was designed to look innocent. It was dated 3 May 2001 and signed “Dr. Nour, Chairman of the Company.” Nour is one of Zawahiri’s aliases. In this context, it was Egyptian Islamic Jihad, not Al Qaeda, of which he was Chairman.

“We have been trying to go back to our main, previous activities. The most important step was the opening of the school. We have made it possible for the teachers to find openings for profitable trade.”

The letter read:
“To: Unknown
From: Ayman al-Zawahiri
Folder: Letters
Date: May 3, 2001

The following is a summary of our situation: We are trying to return to our previous main activity. The most important step was starting the school, the programs of which have been started. We also provided the teachers with means of conducting profitable trade as much as we could. Matters are all promising, except for the unfriendliness of two teachers, despite what we have provided for them. We are patient. [This apparently refers to an internal dispute with two senior London Egyptian islamists].

As you know, the situation below in the village [Egypt] has become bad for traders [jihadis]. Our Upper Egyptian relatives have left the market, and we are suffering from international monopolies. Conflicts take place between us for trivial reasons, due to the scarcity of resources. We are also dispersed over various cities. However, God had mercy on us when the Omar Brothers Company [the Taliban] here opened the market for traders and provided them with an opportunity to reorganize, may God reward them. Among the benefits of residence here is that traders from all over gather in one place under one company, which increases familiarity and cooperation among them, particularly between us and the Abdullah Contracting Company [bin Laden and his associates]. The latest result of this cooperation is the offer they gave. Following is a summary of the offer: Encourage commercial activities [jihad] in the village to face foreign investors; stimulate publicity; then agree on joint work to unify trade in our area. Close relations allowed for an open dialogue to solve our problems. Colleagues here believe that this is an excellent opportunity to encourage sales in general, and in the village in particular. They are keen on the success of the project. They are also hopeful that this may be a way out of the bottleneck to transfer our activities to the stage of multinationals and joint profit. We are negotiating the details with both sides.”

The full message, decoded, is thought to say:
“We have been trying to go back to our military activities. The most important step was the declaration of unity with al-Qaeda. We have made it possible for the mujahideen to find an opening for martyrdom. As you know, the situation down in Egypt has become bad for the mujahideen: our members in Upper Egypt have abandoned military action, and we are suffering from international harassment.”

But Allah enlightened us with His mercy when Taliban came to power. It has opened doors of military action for our mujahideen and provided them with an opportunity to rearrange their forces. One benefit of performing jihad here is the congregation in one place of all mujahideen who came from everywhere and began working with the Islamic Jihad Organization. Acquaintance and cooperation have grown, especially between us and al-Qaeda.”

In December 2002, the Arabic paper London Al-Sharq al-Awsat reported that correspondence on Zawahiri’s computer (which was obtained by the Wall Street Journal) shows Zawahiri uses “school” as code for “Al Qaeda.”

Dr. Jean Rosenfeld, a researcher associated with the UCLA Center for the Study of Religion, and an expert on the symbolism of religious extremist movements, wrote me: “Greendale’ to me signified a conscious choice to use the symbolic color of Islam.” She continued: “The franked eagle on the envelope of the anthrax letters was identical to the one I caught on a documentary that showed a one-second shot of the site where Sadat was assassinated –- the huge eagle above the podium where he was when he died. That assassination was of great significance to Egyptian Jihad and produced the pamphlet by Faraj that justifies “fard ‘ayn”/individual duty as the basis of jihadist doctrine.” She explained that Al Qaeda “is rooted in Egypt and Salafism, not Saudi Arabia and Wahhabism. Al-Zawahiri, I believe, is intensely nostalgic for the Nile Valley.”

The CIA factbook explains that the color green — such as used by anthrax lab technician Yazid Sufaat in naming his lab “Green Laboratory Medicine,” and by the mailer who used the return address “Greendale School” – is the traditional color of islam. Green symbolizes islam, Mohammed and the holy war. In its section on Saudi Arabia, and the “Flag Description,” the CIA “Factbook” explains that the flag is “green with large white Arabic script (that may be translated as There is no God but God; Muhammad is the Messenger of God) above a white horizontal saber (the tip points to the hoist side); green is the traditional color of Islam.”

An intelligence document first released in 2007 involves an operation by EIJ members headed by Atef and including Saif Adel in which the group headed to Somalia to work at developing a new base of operations. The group was called The Green Team. “Greendale School” was used as the return address in the letters and likely is code referring to the Egyptian Islamic Jihad. The stamp on the prestamped envelopes was of a green bird. For a video depicting the Green Bird’s point of view and invoking Allah’s guidance to “the straight path,” see this video “The 3D Kabah - A green birds eye view.” The koranic “Green Birds” reference is from the sentence relating to being set on “The Straight Path.” Timimi, the graduate student who had access to the Alibek/Bailey patent about concentration using hydrophobic silica, advised the EIJ founder Kamal Habib in writing for the publication called Assirat Al-Mustaqeem (“The Straight Path”).

Likely for the same reason, Al Qaeda anthrax lab technician Yazid Sufaat and Zacarias Moussaoui used the name Green Laboratory Medicine as the name of the company that he used, for example, to buy 4 tons of ammonium nitrate, and that he used to cover his anthrax production program. In a Hadith the Messenger of Allah explains that the souls of the martyrs are in the hearts of green birds that fly wherever they please in Paradise.

Green dale refers to green “river valley” — Egypt, Cairo, Egyptian Islamic Jihad and/or Egyptian Islamic Group. Put it all together and you have their new official name (though the American press does not use it) — Qaeda al Jihad. At the Darunta complex where jihadis trained, recruits would wear green uniforms, except for Friday when they would be washed.

In the conversations that the blind sheikh’s spokesman, Sattar, had with people like the blind sheik’s successor Taha, EIJ/Vanguards of Conquest al-Sirri, and the blind sheikh’s son, they used the same language found in emails between Zawahiri and the Yemeni cell in email. If a brother was in the hospital, it meant he was in prison. If he had an accident, it meant perhaps that Egyptian security services had killed him.

Given that using the same address helps the second recipient receiving the letter to identify it and avoid opening it, the perp would have no reason to use the same address unless he was communicating something and wanted to draw attention to it.

Adham Hassoun and Kassem Daher used “school” as code. Canadian businessman Daher is an associate of EIJ member Jaballah, who was detained in Canada and had maintained regular contact with Ayman by satellite telephone after coming to Canada in 1996. “Is there a school over there to teach football?” Hassoun asked, using what the FBI says is code for jihad.

The Amerithrax Task Force explanation of Greendale is as follows. It is too absurd in its logic for words and yet the Postal Inspector or his counsel did not notice:

“The investigation into the fictitious return address on envelopes used for the second round of anthrax mailings, “4th GRADE,” “GREENDALE SCHOOL,” has established a possible link to the American Family Association (AFA) headquartered in Tupelo, Mississippi. In October 1999, AFA, a Christian organization, published an article entitled “AFA takes Wisconsin to court.” The article describes a lawsuit filed in federal court, by the AFA Center for law and Policy (CLP), on behalf of the parents of the students at Greendale Baptist Academy. The articles focuses on an incident that occurred on December 16, 1998, in which case workers of the Wisconsiden Department of Human Services went to the Greendale Baptist Academy. The article focuses on an incident that occurred on December 1, 1998, in which case workers of the Wisconsin Department of Human Services went to the Greendale Baptist Academy in order to interview a fourth grade student. The case workers, acting on an anonymous tip that Greendale Baptist Academy administered corporal punishment as part of its discipline policy, did not disclose to the staff why wanted to interview the student. The case workers interviewed the student in the absence of the student’s parents and informed the school staff that the parents were not to be contacted. The AFA CLP filed suit against the Wisconsin Department of Human Services, citing a violation of the parents’ Fourth Amendment rights.”

____________ donations were made to the AFA in the name of “Mr. and Mrs. Bruce Ivins” on eleven separate occasions beginning on December 31, 1993. After an approximate two year break in donations, the next donation occurred on November 11, 1999, one month after the initial article referencing Greendale Baptist Academy was published in the AFA Journal. It was also discovered that the subscription to the AFA Journal, in the name of ‘Mr. & Mrs. Bruce Invins,’ ... was active until March 2005.”

I think the FBI has screwed the pooch again on this case. he could not have done this alone, and if he did not, their entire case is suspect.

“Using receipts”

If they had a damning “receipt” they would shown it.

The “four hairs” story is maybe the most embarassing thing about the FBI’s report. Why did they put it in? Did their scare-mongering specialist wordsmith slip up? The wordsmith is talented otherwise, creator of the ominous “sole custodian” phrase.

United States Attorney Taylor. I realize you advised Attorney General Gonzalez before your present position, and thus are a very distinguished fellow. But please explain how the scientific findings of isotope ratios prove Dr. Ivins’ guilt — rather than contradict it.

The FBI scientists have been able to distinguish between water isotopes ratios in the anthrax. Brian Williams reports that investigators have told NBC that the water used to make the spores came from the Northeastern United States. Researchers have been able to establish that anthrax grown in water in the Northeastern United States is distinguishable from anthrax grown in water from the Southeast and Pacific Northwest. In one published anthrax study, researchers grew Bacillus subtilis, a harmless bacteria that resembles Bacillus anthracis, using local water from five different U.S. cities. The scientists were able to distinguish those grown in various cities. The method can be used to narrow the number of possible origins of the water based on the number of oxygen and hydrogen isotopes. Interviewer Kestenbaum said: “Ehleringer is now creating a map showing how the isotope ratios of water vary anthrax was grown, it may rule some places out.” As defined by the Census Bureau, the Northeast region of the United States covers nine states: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont. A scientist explained the research in an NPR interview in 2004.

I infer from the NBC report that from the isotope ratios, authorities believe either that the anthrax was grown in one of the yellow (or perhaps light green) areas, but not one of the dark green, blue or red areas on Ehrlinger’s map. The yellow swath includes much of the Northeastern United States — places like Manhattan, and Syracuse, NY as well as places like Ann Arbor and Minneapolis. Islamabad and Baghdad can be excluded. Pretty much all foreign locations apparently can be excluded (except for parts of Canada), along with places with comparable oxygen isotope ratios such as Central New Jersey, Maryland and Ohio. Outside of the United States, pretty much only the adjacent parts of Canada above Northeastern US (e.g., parts of Ontario and Quebec) match the yellow swath that the scientists found distinguishing. The authors of one of the key articles specifically noted that they couldn’t distinguish between North Carolina and Ohio — the dark green. Similarly, they can’t distinguish between Central New Jersey and North Carolina (again, the dark green). The key studies in the peer reviewed literature indicate that they were funded by the Central Intelligence Agency. Someone needs to pay the bills.

Ehleringer and his colleagues published a March 2007 article titled “Stable isotope ratios of tap water in the contiguous United States” in “Water Resources Research.” The study was funded by the “federal government.” The raw data survey results have been embargoed by the federal government.” (The agency would usually be identified). In other water isotope ratio studies the funding agency was identified as the CIA or whatever agency it was — it varied. Perhaps this March 2007 study was funded by the Department of Justice/Federal Bureau of Investigation and was done specifically for the purpose of laying the scientific groundwork of a prosecution in Amerithrax.

Separately, a press release announced in September 2003 that University of Maryland researchers have developed a technique to help the FBI track the origins of deadly anthrax spores by identifying the medium used to grow it. The FBI asked Maryland professor Catherine Fenselau to turn her mass spectrometry lab to the forensic task of sleuthing how bacillus spores, such as anthrax, are prepared. While the Utah scientist in this study was looking at the tap water, Helen W. Kreuzer-Martin, the Maryland scientist in a study published in April 2007 titled “Stable Isotope Ratios and the Forensic Analysis of Microorganisms,” was looking at the nutrients in the culture. The DOJ/FBI likely hopes to put all the data together with the more familiar reasons to suspect someone (means, motive, modus operandi and opportunity), and put on a case that to a moral certainty proves it was committed by the perp(s). Absent the scientific evidence, there perhaps is a lack of a “smoking gun.” Here, based on this new science, hopefully there is a smoking petri dish.

By looking at the oxygen, hydrogen and deuterium geospatial distribution, authorities can more precisely identify where the water came from. For example, the deuterium map might be relied upon to eliminate an ambiguity left by the range indicated by the oxygen and hydrogen maps.

Here is the proof Ivins had a collaborator--Hatfill! The clue is the "Greendale School, Franklin Park" return address.

Hatfill lived in Harare where there is a suburb named Greendale, adjacent to another named Hatfield.

Greendale, Wisconsin, is adjacent to another town famed Franklin.

Folks who assumed he drove when he took leave were mistaken as to get the 9/18 postmark mailing was after 5 p.m.

Trying to make sense of that "sentence."

Using receipts and interviews, authorities say Ivins filled up his car's gas tank,

When was the next time he filled his tank?

It’s a seven hour round trip.

If I were going to drive to deliver anthrax, I would not pay with a credit/debit car, I would have paid with cash.

On the question of modus operandi, I understand that Dr. Bruce Ivins used fake screen names. I, for one, am appalled. Mitchell and Allan and Ed are the only ones with any integrity around here. Dr. Ivins even engaged in a raging battle to edit Wikipedia entries (although not coming close to the raging battle between TrebleRebel and Ed over the Wiki entry relating to Amerithrax. But let’s consider the relevant modus operandi — the mailing of lethal letters, shall we?

This was not the first time the Egyptian islamists sent letter bombs to newspaper offices in connection with an attack on the World Trade Center. NPR set the scene. It was January 2, 1997, at 9:15 a.m. at the National Press Building in Washington, D.C. The employee of the Saudi-owned newspaper Al Hayat began to open a letter. It was a Christmas card — the kind that plays a musical tune. It was white envelope, five and a half inches by six and a half inches, with a computer-generated address label attached. It had foreign postage and a post mark — a postmark appearing to be from Alexandria, Egypt. It looked suspiciously bulky, so he set it down and called the police. Minutes later they found a similar envelope. These were the first two of four letter bombs that would arrive at Al Hayat during the day.” A fifth letter bomb addressed to the paper was intercepted at a nearby post office. They all looked the same. Two similar letter bombs addressed to the “parole officer” (a position that does not exist) arrived at the federal penitentiary at Leavenworth. It seemed evident how some Grinch had spent the holidays in Alexandria, Egypt.

Egyptian Saif Adel (Makawwi), thought to be in Iran, was involved in military planning. Adel was a colonel in the Egyptian Army’s Special Forces before joining Al Qaeda. He helped plan the 1998 attacks on the US embassies in Africa. He was also a planner in the attack on the USS Cole and has served as the liaison officer between Hezbollah and Al Qaeda. Adel assisted Atef, who had overall responsibility for Al Qaeda’s operations. Attorney Al-Zayyat has said, Makkawi had many times claimed responsibility for operations that were carried out inside Egypt but when the perpetrators were arrested, it would be al-Zawahiri’s name whose name they shouted loyalty to from the docks. Some would even say they did not know a person named Makkawi. After the letter al-Hayat letter bombs were sent in January 1997, Saif Adel (Makawwi) gave a statement denying responsibility on behalf of the Vanguards of Conquest.

On January 7, 1997 Saif Adel purporting to be speaking for the Egyptian Vanguards of Islamic Conquest said: “Those are messages of admonishment. There is no flirtation between us and the Americans in order for us to send them such alarming messages in such a manner.” Adel said that “the Vanguards of Conquest “are heavyweight and would not embark on such childish actions.” US press and political commentaries had hinted at the Vanguards of Conquest organization’s involvement in these attempts. In his statement to `Al-Hayat, perhaps referring to the Egyptian Islamic Group, Adel added “I am surprised that we in particular, and not other parties, should be accused of such an operation.”

He got admonished by the unnamed but official spokesman for the Vanguards organization — chastising him as not being authorized to speak for the organization (or even being a member). This other spokesman said “We welcome any Muslim who wants to join us, and if Makkawi wants to [join us], he will be welcomed to the Vanguards march, but through the organizational channels. But if words are not coupled with actions, we tell him: Fear God, and you can use a different name other than the Vanguards to speak on its behalf.” The spokesman denounced Makkawi’s authority to speak for the group, referring to the January 5th statement it had made denying responsibility. The spokesperson for the Vanguards of Conquest apparently was Post Office employee Sattar’s friend, Al-Sirri, based in London.

The FBI would not speculate as to who sent the letters or why. But this was your classic “duck that walks like a duck” situation. As NPR reported at the time, “analysts say that letter bombs are rarely sent in batches, and when they are it’s generally prompted by politics, not personal animus.” Al Hayat was a well respected and moderate newspaper. It was friendly to moderate Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt. That, without more, was accurately discerned by observers at the time as sufficient to make the newspaper outlet a target of the militant islamists. The newspaper, its editor explained, does not avoid criticizing militant islamists. The Al Hayat Editor-in-Chief explained: “We’ve been opposed to all extremists in the Arab world, especially the fundamentalists.” Mohammed Salameh, a central defendant in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, was sent to Leavenworth in 1994. The other three Egyptian extremists convicted in the bombing were sent to prisons in California, Indiana and Colorado. Like the blind sheik Abdel-Rahman, Salameh had complained of his conditions and asked to be avenged. The Blind Sheik was particularly irked that the prison officials did not cut his fingernails.

Abdel-Rahman was convicted in 1995 of seditious conspiracy, bombing conspiracy, soliciting an attack on an U.S. military installation, and soliciting the murder of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. His followers were indicted for plotting to bomb bridges, tunnels and landmarks in New York for which Rahman allegedly had given his blessings. The mailing of deadly letters in connection with an earlier attack on the World Trade Center was not merely the modus operandi of militant islamists, it was the group’s signature — it’s their calling card. Khaled Abu el-Dahab, a naturalized American, from Silicon Valley, in a confession detailed Egyptian defense ministry document dated October 28, 1998, explained that he was trained to make booby-trapped letters to send to important people, as well as asked to enroll in American aviation schools to learn how to fly gliders and helicopters. He was a friend of Ali Mohammed, a former special forces officer in the Egyptian army and former US Army Sergeant. The modus operandi of these militant supporters of the blind sheik was known to be planes and booby-trapped letters.

The Al Hayat reporters and editor were not expressing an opinion — though the owner did lay out various possibilities (e.g., Iraq, Iran etc.). The owner of the paper had commanded Saudi forces during the Persian Gulf War, when Bin Laden was so upset about American troops on the Arabian peninsula. Moreover, al Hayat had recently opened up a Bureau in Jerusalem, giving it a dateline of Jerusalem rather than al Quds, which some thought blasphemous. But none of the possibilities would plausibly explain why the letter bomb was sent to Leavensworth where three of the WTC 1993 defendants were imprisoned, including Ramzi Yousef’s lieutenant who had asked that his mistreatment be avenged. (That was the criminal genius who returned to Ryder to reclaim his deposit after blowing up the truck at WTC). Egyptian security officials argued that the letters were sent from outside of Egypt, the stamps were not available in Egypt, and that the postmark was not Alexandria as reported. Whatever the place of mailing, the sender likely was someone who was upset that KSM’s and Ramzi Yousef’s associates had been imprisoned, to include, most notably, the blind sheik. Whoever is responsible for the anthrax mailings, it is a very good bet that they are upset the blind sheik is detained. That should be at the center of any classified profile of the crime.

On December 31, 1996 Mohammed Youssef was in Egypt — having gone to Egypt months before. The al Hayat letter bombs related to the detention and alleged mistreatment of the blind sheikh and the WTC bombers were sent 10 days earlier — on the Day of Measures. In 2006, he was named as co-defendant with Hassoun, Daher, Padilla and Jayyousi. Youssef was born in Alexandria. Do authorities suspect the “Florida cell” of being involved in the al Hayat letter bombs? Kifah Jayyousi’s “Islam Report” over the years — distributed by Adham Hassoun in Florida and Kassem Daher in Canada — expressed outrage at detention/extradition due to terrorism law and also what he perceived as attacks on his religion by some newspapers. His headlines on the internet groups blazed “Just In! First Muslim Victim of New Terrorism Law!: US Agents Arrest Paralegal Of Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman Without Charge Prepares To Hand Him To Egyptian Regime,” soc.religion.islam, dated April 27, 1996 and “Islam Report (Newspaper Attacks Our Religion! Act Now!,” soc.religion.islam, Apr. 16, 1996

In connection with the January 1997 letter bombs, Ayman got the know-how to send sophisticated electronic letter bombs from Iraqi intelligence according to one item from the highly controversial Feith memo. In the al Hayat letter bombings, Ayman allowed the finger to be pointed at Libya. In the Amerithrax letters, he allowed the finger to be pointed to a United States biodefense insider by the prosecutor who would have presented any indictment ot the grand jury. Born in Haifa in 1948, the man’s daughter then came to represent Al-Timimi pro bono.

After the Al Hayat letter bombs to newspapers in DC and NYC and people in symbolic positions, in January 1997, both the Blind Sheikh and his paralegal, Sattar, were quoted in separate articles in Al Hayat (in Arabic) denying that they or their supporters were responsible. The Blind Sheikh commented that al Hayat was fair and balanced in its coverage and his supporters would have no reason to “hit” them. Sattar noted that the bombs were mailed on December 20, one day before the brief in support of the blind sheik on appeal. He questioned whether someone (like the FBI) was trying to undermine the appeal’s prospects. The same sort of counterintuitive theory was raised in connection with the earlier letter bombing of newspapers to DC and New York City and people in symbolic positions. But that time it was Ahmed Abdel Sattar who noted that the bombs were mailed on December 20, 1996 one day before the brief in support of the blind sheik on appeal. This time, Mr. Sattar did not need any help making the argument with respect to the anthrax letters — numerous people with political agendas rushed to do it for him to include counsel for Bosnia and Herzogovina and legal advisor to the PLO, professor Francis Boyle. And now even Attorney General Gonzalez’s former counselor.

Hatfill lived in Harare where there is a suburb named Greendale, adjacent to another named Hatfield.

That doesn't prove anything beyond that those places exist.

By looking at the oxygen, hydrogen and deuterium geospatial distribution, authorities can more precisely identify where the water came from. For example, the deuterium map might be relied upon to eliminate an ambiguity left by the range indicated by the oxygen and hydrogen maps.

What happens if bottled water was used?

If I were going to drive to deliver anthrax, I would not pay with a credit/debit car, I would have paid with cash.

Absolutely. However, it appears that he used a debit/credit card to fill his tank presumably in the vicinity of his home rather than along the theorized route. Had he filled his tank say 100 miles from home, you can be that would have been printed in bold flashing fonts.

By the time a person is 60 years old, they have fairly routine behaviour. An anomalous ATM withdrawal of cash to cover the trip would also show up as different from the normal pattern of withdrawal. No mention of such withdrawal by the Feds.

Now, as you know, I’ve already conceded that I am shocked — totally shocked — that this man, depressed over the FBI’s aggressive investigation, would continue this despicable act of using fake screen names on the internet.

Let us plum the depths of the deception engaged by such a terrorist mind as might be responsible for the anthrax mailings.

Mark A. Gabriel, PhD, once taught at Al-Azhar in Egypt. He wrote a very lucid book Journey Into The Mind Of An Islamist Terrorist. He discusses a booklet Zawahiri wrote titled COVERT OPERATIONS which is available online in Arabic. If you want to know how Zawahiri views deceit on such issues as battle plans and spying, read his own words online. Gabriel explains:

“Ayman al-Zawahiri leads a busy terrorist organization, and he must solve practical problems. For example, he may want some Al-Qaeda members to blend in and live in the United States. If these men wore full beards and went to ultraconservative mosques to pray, they they would arouse suspicion and get put on a watch list. Instead, al-Zawahiri would want these operatives to go undercover and blend into society. However, these devout Muslims will not go undercover unless they believe they have permission to do so from the teachings of Islam. As a result, al-Zawahiri wrote a booklet titled COVERT OPERATIONS, which goes deep into Islamic teaching and history to describe how deceit can be a tool in Muslim life.”

The entire book by al-Zawahiri is posted in the Arabic language website for al-Tawheed Jihad (The Pulpit of Monotheism and Jihad). Zawahiri concluded that “hiding one’s faith and being secretive was allowed especially in time of fear from prosecution of the infidels.” Indeed, his student group in Cairo in the 1970s was known as the “shaven beards.” The founder of one of the cells merged with Ayman’s to form the Egyptian Islamic Jihad then wrote for Al-Timimi’s charity IANA.

Al-Zawahiri discussed two specific ways Muhammad used deceit in battle: (1) keeping battle plans secret, and (2) spying. The author writes: “Al-Zawahiri specifically gave radicals permission not to pray in the mosque or attend Friday sermons if it would compromise their position.” He noted that Al-Zawahiri sealed his argument with a very important quote from Ibn Taymiyyah (who was quoted by Al-Timimi upon his his indictment). Ever the practical man, Muhammad approved lying in three circumstances (1) during war, (2) to reconcile between two feuding parties, and (3) to a spouse in order to please her.”

Here, of course, if Dr. Ivins drove 7 or whatever hours at night, after his late meeting and after he stopped back at the office, then his wife would know. Even if Dr. Ivins lied to her, she would know he was absent. What does she say?

“That doesn’t prove anything beyond that those places exist.”

It also proves the FBI’s interest in geographical coincidences is worse than they know.

The FBI’s two “Greendale” stories show even more coincidences can be made by looking at neighboring towns—someone here found the “Hatfield” long ago, I saw the “Franklin” in Wisconsin SW of Greendale.

Anthrax hair samples dont match.

Hell, I could have told that just by looking.

The writing of the text of the letter is also interesting in that the “As” and “Ts” are double-lined — to suggest ATTA, the lead hijacker. It pointed to an article by the Bacteriology Division, U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, Frederick, MD 21701-5011, where Dr. Ivins worked. If he is guilty, that’s one special flavor of crazy.

When the US Centers for Disease Control first identified that the Ames strain had been used in the mailing to Florida in October 2001, Keim and his colleagues at The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR) had nearly finished a project to sequence Bacillus anthracis— specifically, the chromosome of an anthrax isolate from a laboratory in Porton Down, U.K. Ayman had a microbiologist attending Porton Down-sponsored conferences at which presentations were made about the sequencing of Ames. The letter writer appears to have even double-lined A’s and T’s in the letters accompanying the anthrax possibly to simultaneously allude to Atta and the genomic sequence.

I believe Ed would agree that the A’s and T’s, for whatever reason, are definitely double-lined.

As explained at the Porton Down conferences attended by Ayman’s operative Rauf Ahmad, Keim’s research team eventually discovered 60 new ‘markers’ in the Bacillus anthracis genome—DNA sequences that may vary from one isolate to another. These include insertions or deletions of DNA, and short sequences that are repeated at different lengths in the genome known as VNTRs (variable-number tandem repeats). A decade earlier, it had been determined that one of three proteins comprising anthrax toxin, and the first nucleotide sequence to be reported from B. anthracis (by USAMRIID authors no less), had a consensus TATAAT sequence located at the putative -10 promoter site. It is greek to us but apparently something with meaning to the person who drafted the letter. Perhaps the sender was saying that the bacteria was pathogenic unlike what had been sent to the Canadian immigration minister six months earlier.

You can just imagine the same fictional CIA folks plugging the underlined letter from the anthrax letters and wondering whether it pointed to the article in the journal Gene by USAMRIID authors. Gene. 1988 Sep 30;69(2):287-300. The article is called “Sequence and analysis of the DNA encoding protective antigen of Bacillus anthracis.” The authors were from the Bacteriology Division, U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, Frederick, MD 21701-5011. The abstract reads: “The nucleotide sequence of the protective antigen (PA) gene from Bacillus anthracis and the 5’ and 3’ flanking sequences were determined. PA is one of three proteins comprising anthrax toxin; and its nucleotide sequence is the first to be reported from B. anthracis. A consensus TATAAT sequence was located at the putative -10 promoter site.”

When authorities determined that the anthrax had not been genetically modified so as to be resistant to antibiotics, Condi Rice told the President: “That’s the best news you’ve had as president.” Years later, at trial for sedition, GMU microbiology grad student Ali Al-Timimi, who had worked 15 feet from the leading anthrax scientist and the former USAMRIID deputy commander, read “Genome Technology.”

The coded e-mail Faris wrote back to KSM suggesting that the idea of removing bolts from the span of the Brooklyn Bridge was not a viable idea was but one of many examples of the simple codes used by Al Qaeda operatives. Sometimes the code might be as simple as Adham Hassoun’s “stuff” for the local soccer team in places like Bosnia or his references to a young man who wanted to go out and get some “fresh air” [go join the jihad]. Sometimes it might be Iyman Faris’ reference to the weather or Ramzi Binalshibh’s “shirts” for Sally. Sometimes it might be a reference to Greendale School or a marriage proposal to Jenny such as in the case of the anthrax mailings. The CIA reports that wedding is Al-Qaeda-speak for an event. That, according to New York Times journalists, is why the CIA got so anxious to have the Buffalo boys arrested. Apart from an email about a “big feast,” the young men from Buffalo had started talking about a planned wedding. Interpreting such code is not without risk. The CIA kicked down the door in Bahrain and dragged him away from the altar to the horror of his bride-to-be.

But putting aside this question of nuptials, impending or annulled, the fact remains that the sender of the anthrax letters would have had no reason to use the same address on the second letter such as “Greendale School” unless he was communicating something. That identical return address, in fact, helped authorities locate and intercept the letter to a Senator. All of the coding together may have served to tell the world, for example, that Mohammed Atta and the others were going to fly to paradise in a green bird and that the anthrax was courtesy of the Vanguards of Conquest. If you mistreat our prisoners or continue appropriations to Israel and Egyptian regimes, we may attack Washington, D.C. and New York City with aerosolized anthrax. You act at your peril. As for the TATAAT sequence and other coding, Ayman simultaneously framed the US Army by using the “Ames strain” while telling them who did it.

You’re drowning my ping cache.

My intelligence source on these matters advises me that Al Qaeda’s spymaster is peeing his pants laughing at the USDOJ, FBI and White House.

As explained by author Peter Lance in Triple Cross, after the 1998 embassy bombings, a ten-member federal team secretly entered the California residence of Ali Mohamed, Zawahiri’s former head of intelligence.’ They copied Mohamed’s hard drives and removed a series of CD-ROM and floppy disks. A memo titled “Cocktail” appeared to be a draft manual on sleeper cell structure.

The file on cell structure read in part:

“Every member knows how to do everything.
Every member has a legal job as a cover (Student, worker, trade).

Safety is the main concern, so the contingency plan is very important. Before working on the target you have (to) specify a rally point to meet in case of separation for any reason.

The communications between the different groups are conducted through the dead drop only.

Each group does not know anything about the other group, even Majmouat (the word means “the collected” or “the collection”). Al-qeyada does not know how many group(s) under its leadership. Only the group know each other because the members of one group only working with each other.”

Mohammad Khalil al-Hukaymah alias Abu Jihad al-Masri took on Ali Mohammed’s role. Al-Hukaymah was the author of the description of the Amerithrax investigation in 2002. Abu Jihad al-Masri joined the Egyptian Islamic Group in 1979. He was arrested in 1981 after Sadat’s assassination. He once was arrested alongside the blind sheik Abdel-Rahman. Hukaymah is reportedly connected to the blind sheikh’s successor Taha. Taha was the Islamic Group head who was in close touch with the NY-based US postal employee Sattar, the blind sheik’s “surrogate,” in 1999 and 2000. Al-Hukaymah dedicated the treatise “[t]o the pious and the hidden who are not known when they come and who are not missed when they disappear — To those whom their God will answer when they pray to Him. To all the eyes that are vigilant late at night to bring victory to this religion.”

The introduction of the 152-page book starts:

“The Manhattan raid led to a radical change in the perception of American Security. After the northern half of the continent had been isolated from the rest of the world and its threats by two oceans, it now came from inside. The surprise hit the symbols of American power in its economic and security dimensions.”

Published at al-Maqreze Center for Historical Studies website (www.almaqreze.com) by the one-time EIJ shura member al-Sibai, the section on the anthrax investigation appears to have been written in 2002.

“The Anthrax Scandal:

Over many months, there was an excited search for the person responsible for the worst biological terror attack on American soil. Six letters sent by mail to Leahy, Daschle, Tom Brokaw, Dan Rather, The New York Post and the offices of the National Enquirer in Florida, led to the sickening of 18 people and five deaths. The crime was especially scary because anthrax, which is a complex powder that scatters in the atmosphere, had spilled from the envelopes and spread through parts of the mail system and contaminated a Senate building. One year later, the main post office in Washington had not yet opened.

The FBI is under great pressure to close this case, and the anthrax criminal is supposed to be alive and free. Two members of the Senate have asked to receive regular reports about this investigation from the FBI, and they have become increasingly impatient.”

After a lengthy discussion of the focus on Hatfill, the author explains,

“Until the investigators find material evidence that connects a person to the crime, they are forced to speculate about the motives and methods of the criminal. They are still casting a wide net. Law enforcement sources say they have issued hundreds of subpoenas and they are analyzing thousands of documents in search of new evidence.

The evidence may be small and unseen — sweat or an odor on an envelope — but that is all that they need in order to attract the dogs.”

Al-Hukaymah pointed to the Aldrich Ames incident and the FBI’s inability to find the perpetrator of the anthrax mailings as evidence that U.S intelligence can be defeated. Aldrich Ames, head of counterintelligence relating to the Russians, had a different rolex for different days of the week. He drove a new jaguar to work. Aldrich told the CIA that his money came from his wife’s foreign inheritance, and the CIA never required meaningful corroboration. So we should not be that surprised when someone known, to borrow Dr. Alibek’s description to me, as an “Islamic hardliner,” is given access to Center for Biodefense and ATCC facilities, to include a program funded by DARPA’s $13 million during the relevant period. Perhaps the focus should not be on more money, for biodefense but on doing a better job at maintaining security. Perhaps focus should be on avoiding proliferation of know-how.

Al-Hukaymah reportedly was Ayman’s connection to Mamdouh Ismail, an Egyptian defense attorney and a former member of “the Jihad group” who since the 1980’s has represented various Egyptians accused of terrorism offenses in Egypt. He represented al-Nashar, the biochemist who was an expert on polymerization and had a key to the 7/7 bomber’s flat. Ismail was one of several hundred rounded up following the assassination of Anwar al-Sadat in 1981. He served three years. Ismail was arrested on March 29, 2007. In 1999, Ismail was refused permission to establish an Islamist political party (called Hizb ash-Shari’a) with the help of fellow lawyer attorney al-Zayyat. After the blind sheik said in March 1999 that an attempt through a political party should not be attempted, Al-Zayat and Mamdouh Ismail deferred and Attorney Ismail has publicly objected to a reconciliation between Cairo and Egyptian Islamic Jihad. The two had worked with EIJ shura member al-Sibai before he took refuge in the UK. Mamdouh Ismail now is accused of complicity in an “Egyptian project” of al-Qaeda, taking his orders from Ayman al-Zawahiri via al-Qaeda propaganda chief al-Hukaymah and the UK-based EIJ publicist Hani al-Sibai. Both al-Hukaymah and Al-Sibai deny the charge. Al Sibai considers himself historian of the movement and published his diaries in Al Hayat in 2004. He is at al-Maqreze Center for Historical Studies website that published the treatise that included the discussion of Amerithrax.

Well , I’m embarrassed for the FBI here. There is no case against this poor dead man who can’t defend himself. This is the greatest chemical terrorist act in our history and the FBI wants to persecute citizens. Here is a clue guys— try Muslims.
911— 918 get it???

Mueller is either corrupt or totally incompetent, I don’t know which. Ever since Bush appointed him he has been promoting clintonoids and undermining the values that the Bush administration claims to stand for.

It’s absolutely typical that he and his clintonoid stooges should suggest that the American Family Association was behind the anthrax attacks rather than Muslim terrorists. Or if it wasn’t the AFA, then it must have been this scientist. Or maybe THAT scientist. Or probably the scientist that they hounded until he committed suicide in despair.

It’s what clinton would have done. Nothing has changed for the better under Mueller. He makes AG Gonzalez look good by comparison.

NPR is reporting that the Department of Justice is going to amend its indictment against Aafia Siddiqui. She had a map on her that showed Plum Island where virulent Ames was located, as I recall. Now that likely is just because it is near the Statute of Liberty but Aafia is astonishing nonetheless.

When the Department of Defense recently issued formal charges against Al Qaeda members who were involved in plotting 9/11, former CIA Director George Tenet noted in his 2007 book: “The most startling revelation from this intelligence success story was that the anthrax program had been developed in parallel to 9/11 planning.” It is interesting, therefore, to consider what an operative like Aafia knew or thought about anthrax.

When various non-pilot hijackers purchased their tickets in late May 2001 and June 2001, they listed the phone number of Al-Baluchi, the future husband of Brandeis PhD Aafia Siddiqui, as their contact number. He was in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Later in June 2001, other hijackers listed al Hawsawi. Al-Hawsawi’s was KSM’s assistant. KSM says it was al-Hawsawi’s computer that had the anthrax spraydrying documents. Al-Hawsawi was also in Dubai. In the formal charges, the Department of Defense alleges that Al Hawsawi and Al-Baluchi (Ali Abdul Aziz Ali) both assisted the non-pilot hijackers by buying clothes, food, lodging, rental cars, traveler’s checks and making travel arrangements. Al-Baluchi (Ali Abdul Aziz Ali) returned to Karachi from Dubai on June 26, 2001. Al-Baluchi told KSM, who was his uncle, that he was willing to do anything to help the Planes Operation. KSM advised him to also apply for a visa. In late August 2001, he applied for travel to the US on September 4, 2001 but his visa was rejected. On September 10, 2001, al-Baluchi flew from Dubai, United Arab Emirates to Karachi. If his travel visa for travel to the US had been accepted, what would have been his role? He later married the pious sAafia Siddiqui, a Brandeis PhD, in the spring of 2003, shortly before his capture. (Al-Hawsawi had taken over for KSM upon KSM’s capture a couple months earlier). Had al-Baluchi known Aafia Siddiqui prior to 9/11? Did Aafia have foreknowledge of 9/11? Is it true she met anthrax planning head Atef in June 2001 in Africa? Aafia’s attorney once said she could prove Aafia was in the US in June 2001. Aafia’s family, however, prevailed upon the attorney not to subpoena Aafia’s credit card records as she had planned. Aafia left the US for Pakistan in a hurry on September 19, 2001, booking the first available flight. Where is Aafia now? Was she in ISI custody as Aafia’s family and lawyer claims (picked up in May 2003)? Why was ISI refusing to cooperate with the CIA as happened with Ayman Zawahiri’s anthrax infiltrator Rauf Ahmad, the scientist who infiltrated the UK biodefense establishment?

As I’ve said for years, the forensic evidence most useful in proving the source of the acquisition of the Ames strain was going to be the inverted plasmid and mixed strain. Dr. Read, a scientist helping with the Amerithrax investigation in the DNA sequencing, long ago published the news that the anthrax was a 50/50 mixture of genotype 62 (Ames) and genotype 62 with an inversion on the plasmid. At Houston, where Aafia has a connection, graduate student Melissa Drysdale at Theresa Koehler’s lab in Houston in Spring 2001 — just as the lab was ramping up to BL-3 — rendered a strain virulent from avirulent by inserting the virulent plasmid into an avirulent strain. Did Aafia visit Houston in June 2001 after she finished her PhD? There was a massive flood at the lab then and the doors were left propped open.

In early November 2005, an Assistant United States Attorney said in his opening argument in the prosecution of Uzair Paracha, that an unnamed woman, if asked would “help carry out a deadly Anthrax attack against the United States.’” It earlier had been reported that the defendant, Uzair Paracha, had agreed to help KSM and an operative in connection with some ID documents. The AUSA was referring to Al Qaeda supporter Aafia Siddiqui. One ACLU lawyer representing the family described the doe-eyed Aafia as a soccer mom driving a Volvo.

In early 2002, Aafia Siddiqui had opened up the Post Office box that was to be used in connection with the documents. In January 2002, she was still married to her husband when she came back to the US, interviewed at SUNY and John Hopkins, and opened up a PO Box in Maryland for operative Majid Khan. She filed for divorce from her husband in 2002. Her divorce came through in August 2002.

Aafia Siddiqui studied neurological science and has studied at MIT and Brandeis University in Massachusetts, as well as at Houston, Texas. The Wall Street Journal has reported that according to witnesses discussed in a UN dossier, Aafia Siddiqui reportedly met with Al Qaeda’s military commander, Atef, in Liberia in June 2001. There is a difference of opinion as to whether the key witness is credible. Although he drove the woman around, perhaps his desire for a visa to the US influenced his recollection when he saw Aafia’s picture in the paper. Aafia’s attorney emphasizes that witness identifications are inherently unreliable.

In Maryland, Aafia visited a cousin in Gaithersburg and helped Majid Khan in connection with possible attacks by opening a mailbox in his and her name. Her family argues that it is her husband, Mohammed Ahmad Khan, who has made her look guilty — for example, by using her e-mail account to buy night goggles and a book on how to make explosives. According to one report, Aafia left for Pakistan on September 19, 2001 and so was not in the country at the time of the second mailing. She returned from Pakistan briefly for interviews. At last report, she had 3 children.

She and her ex-husband, a Harvard-trained anesthesiologist at last report living in Karachi, were officers of Institute of Islamic Research and Teaching Inc. In the mid-1990s, she worked for the United Islamic Organization (”UIO”), an education and relief organization. Her mother was President and her sister also volunteered. Through the group, for example, Siddiqui raised money for Bosnian refugees and the widows and orphans from that conflict. The organization was founded in Zambia in 1974 by Ismat Siddiqui. Its head office is in Karachi, Pakistan and on paper has branches in the United States, Canada, and Saudi Arabia. Perhaps the reality is as the family’s first attorney described to me: Aafia’s father set up the charity as something for the mom to do, who ran it out of her home. Any branch offices were run out of residences. In addition, Siddiqui was found to be active with the Al-Kifah Refugee Center, the Boston branch of an Islamic charity that was ostensibly raising funds for Bosnian orphans but which also was under scrutiny by federal investigators as a front for Al Qaeda and whose Brooklyn office was associated with the Blind Sheikh.

In April 2003, Aafia’s mom, Ismat, said she last saw her daughter on March 30, 2003 before Aafia left in a minicab along with her three children to go to the capital Islamabad. She was going to visit a friend and uncle. She called her mom from the train station — she did not have money for plane tickets. (Rail by far is the easiest and most efficient means of traveling to Islamabad, far in the north). She never made it to see her uncle. Pakistani government officials tried to calm her fears — telling her to be “patient and not rely on media reports” about Aafia’s fate. The authorities have denied having Siddiqui in custody prior to last month. Then they took her to a conference room and shot her in the gut. Let the marine explain that one to his mom.

“Rest assured, my daughter has nothing to do with al-Qaeda or any other organization,” Ismat said. In April 2003, when reporting the disappearance, she said neither Khan nor any member of his family had been in touch since she vanished. She claims Aafia’s husband abused her, a charge that the husband’s brother and father denies.

Her family has an explanation that this is all a case of mistaken identity.
Back in 2003, Ismat Siddiqui, Aafia’s mother, reported that a stranger came to her house and told her that her daughter was safe and that she should not raise a “hue and cry” for her release. She says he told her not “make too much noise about Aafia if you want her to return safely.” He also threatened her that if she made the matter public, her daughter would meet the “same fate as Asif Bhuja met.” (Bhuja was a suspect in the murder of Danny Pearl but was found dead when police arrived to question him; Saud Memon, the man who owned the property where Pearl was kept was later reported to have been involved in financing Al Qaeda’s anthrax efforts and years after being captured was left for dead on his family’s doorstep.)

A family member in the US hired an attorney who has inquired of the FBI as to Aafia’s whereabouts but the FBI reported that they did not have her in custody. Aafia Siddiqui’s family has long-standing ties with the family of Pakistan religious affairs minister Mohammed Ijaz ul-Haq. Ul-Haq’s late father — Gen. Zia ul-Haq — gave Izmat Siddiqui, Aafia’’s mother, a government post after he seized power in 1977 and set up a new court system to enforce sharia. The religious affairs minister Ijaz ul-Haq told The New Yorker that his family respected Aafia’s mother because she “is a religious scholar.” When ul-Haq’s own son attended college in Boston, Aafia Siddiqui fixed him home-cooked meals. Hopefully, if experience is a guide, we may learn that the Pakistan ISI had her in custody and treated her well — and that any questioners were respectful and merely subjected her to secondhand smoke.

An Interior Ministry spokesman confirmed in late May 2004 that Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, allegedly involved in terrorist activities, had been arrested in 2003 from Karachi and handed over to the US authorities. Just three days later on May 26, 2004, Director Mueller and Attorney General Ashcroft held a press conference announcing she was an Al Qaeda operative and they were looking for her (even though some were suggest the ISI or CIA already had her in custody for over a year). Aafia’s mother and sister at last report no longer communicated with the uncle who wrote an intriguing pair of letters to a Pakistan paper. The ACLU lawyer advised me that Aafia’s mom and sister deemed that his actions — in raising a fuss — were not in Aafia’s best interests.

Aafia has spent a lot of time in front of a keyboard and so she may have left quite a paper trail. Her mom said she had gone to Rawalpindi and elsewhere in Pakistan. Her mother blames her son-in-law but the FBI’s interest is greater in Aafia. When told by someone at the Roxbury mosque that the FBI did not know her as they knew her, the agent responded “You don’t know her like we know her.”

In the Fall of 2003, Fowzia left her position at John Hopkins in neurology to return to Pakistan. In the Spring, she inquired of a government official as to Aafia’s whereabouts and was told she had already been released and should go home and wait for a call — but the call never came. The Pakistan Interior Minister has said: “You will be astonished to know about the activities of Dr Aafia (Siddiqui).”

According to this report, Aafia was with her three children when detained. The family’s attorney denies that the three children are with relatives.

In 1995, Aafia wrote this:

“Pakistani govt. has officially joined the gang of our typical contemporary govts. of Muslim countries. I mean Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia and the likes of them… Here’s what I read in this Friday’s issue of the “Muslim News,” something that was confirmed a few days earlier by some articles in local papers like The Boston Globe and the New York Times etc: “BENAZIR ASKS FOR THE WEST’S HELP AGAINST ‘EXTREMISM’. Benazir Bhutto, Pakistan’s prime minister, called on the west to help eradicate religious opposition. She said that Pakistan is a “moderate” Islamic country and it is the first defense line against “terrorism,” and hence needs international support. She added that the arrest of Ramzi Yousef and giving him to the United States is a simple proof. [Ramzi Yousef was the mentor of al-Baluchi, Aafia’s future husband]. She added that Pressler’s amendment deprived Pakistan from U.S. aid and helped strengthen ‘religious violence.’”

“That was before she became a house frau,” the family’s ACLU attorney pointed out to me. But is it accurate to suggest that just because someone has primary responsibility for child care that they suddenly are no longer political?

Aafia’s sister Fowzia, a respected neurologist involved in diagnosing and treating epilepsy, was at John Hopkins until her concern for Aafia’s welfare became too pressing a matter. She too, along with her mom, for a time was locked inside the family home incommunicado even as to a distraught uncle. The Pakistan Interior Minister once said at a press conference: “You will be astonished to know about the activities of Dr Aafia (Siddiqui).” Her uncle wrote two informative letters to the editor at a Pakistan paper. His sister and niece were not under house arrest as he speculated — which leaves the inference they just didn’t hear the knocking at the door, weren’t at home, or just weren’t interested in communicating on the subject.

At last report in 2003, the ex-husband is alive and well in Karachi according to the ACLU attorney. At last report, Aafia’s mom, sister and brother reportedly did not know the whereabouts of Aafia’s children. The ACLU Attorney Lamoreaux advised me that she knows of no basis to the suggestion, first made by a Southern Florida television station, that Aafia knew “Jafar the Pilot.” (The civil rights attorney who represented Muhammad reports that although the Pakistan press has said she was a member of the “Chemical Wire Group,” Aafia in fact does not know anything about chemicals.)

In US News & World Report, attorney Lamoreaux is quoted as saying that Siddiqui doesn’t fit the profile. “A woman with children, wearing a hijab, driving a Volvo,” scoffs Lamoreaux. “Is that how al Qaeda is recruiting, now, at playgrounds?” The US News story noted “The FBI says the information from those early investigations is classified.” Lamoreaux adds: “The FBI often fans sparks into flames. But it looks to me like Khalid Shaikh Mohammed knew enough about her to know her name. It wasn’t Jane Doe or Jane Smith. That does strike me as odd.”

Did Aafia have potential access to the collection of anthrax strains at Brandeis and did that long-held collection include Ames? On March 11, 2002, the Brandeis General Counsel sent an email advising that the federal authorities had subpoenaed records in connection with the investigation of the anthrax crimes.

In November 2001, the Hazmat Team and the State Department of Health was called after three researchers were doing research with anthrax and Administration officials were concerned there might be contamination. The scientists were confident all scientific protocols had been followed but Hazmat was called nonetheless. The research had been done after the anthrax mailings seeking means to detect anthrax spores. The anthrax used had been at Brandeis a long time, acquired at a time before federal regulations in 1997 required that transfers be recorded. The lab was in the Kalman Building, part of the complex of buildings adjoining the Volen Center. Brandeis researchers Daniel Perlman and Inga Mahler had “decided to focus on developing a solid growth medium for cultivating B. anthracis that might be usable in the field with a minimum of equipment. They further developed the growth medium for use at room temperature thereby obviating the need for equipment such as incubators for sustaining an elevated temperature.” The pair obtained a patent issued March 2004 titled “Selective growth medium for Bacillus anthracis and methods of use.”

Dr. Perlman has been innovative on a wide range of consumer products; Dr. Mahler had published on the subject of gram positive and gram negative bacteria (the subject underlying the patent) in the Journal of Bacteriology in 1989. Dr. Mahler advises me that the strain of Bacillus anthracis they used in December 2001 was ordered by her group at Brandeis almost 40 years ago. It came from the American Type Culture Collection and was kept viable, together with other stock strains. She explains that before 9/11 you could simply obtain the organism from culture collections or colleagues. Their offices are in Abelson-Bass-Yalem, adjoining the Volen Center where Aafia’s lab was located. The strain used, Dr. Mahler advises (referred to in the paper as MC 607) — MC stands for Rosenstiel Center — was Vollum, not Ames. Vollum is a strain that like Ames is used to challenge vaccines. It is less lethal but was used by the US in the 1950s in making anthrax weapons. Dr. Mahler reports she knows of no Ames on campus. Dr. Perlman did not respond to an email query. The anthrax was autoclaved, or inactivated in a pressure cooker, before the inspectors arrived at the scene.
Aafia obtained her PhD from Brandeis in 2001, having graduated from MIT with a degree in biology in 1994. The Visual Lab at which Aafia worked had rules: “No Hitting, No Punching, No Pushing, No Grabbing, No Biting.” Judging from its internet page, the lab seems to have been a pleasant place to work. The operating manual instructed that if you don’t know “ask.” The lab’s work under Robert Sekuler, mainly funded by a grant from the NIH, related to how we remember, forget, or misremember things. Aafia’s 2001 183-page thesis “Separating the components of imitation,” which concerns visual learning and visual discrimination, was very far removed from questions like the Palestinian conflict or creating a fine powder using a mini-spraydryer.

In the first year of their Ph.D. program, students do 4 nine-week rotations in different laboratories of their choosing. First-year course work includes a core class in principles of neuroscience, and intensive graduate level seminars that give students experience in reading original research literature and making oral presentations. Graduate research advisors are typically chosen at the end of the first year. So one question is: what different labs did Aafia work in during her first year? It is related to the question: what is the origin of the anthrax spraydrying documents on the laptop of the colleague of Aafia’s future husband al-Balucchi?

“Aafia Siddiqui was here (Boston) in June 2001— when some press reports suggest she was in Liberia meeting with Atef — says the family’s attorney, Elaine Whitfield Sharp. “And I can prove it.” When her attorney proposed to the family that they obtain her credit card records by subpoena, the family vetoed the idea. Although it should have been easy to check, no members of a play group were brought forward to say that Aafia was in Boston in June. Counsel for the family succeeded at preventing Ismat, the mom, from having to testify before a grand jury in Boston on the grounds that she was too distraught over the disappearance of her daughter.

So what were the 4 labs (or whatever) that had the 8 known samples of Ames that were an identical match?

Did the PhD neurologist Aafia Siddiqui have potential access to the exact matching virulent Ames strain at the University of Texas Medical School at Houston? Veterinarian and anthrax expert Martin Hugh-Jones, a professor at Louisiana State University, has said: “It was like trading baseball cards.” Hugh-Jones reports he got most of his anthrax from Peter Turnbull at the Porton Down lab in Great Britain, one of those that had received the Ames strain directly from Ft. Detrick.

Aafia studied for a time in Houston for a year after moving to Houston in 1990. (Her brother lived and worked in the Houston area beginning in 2001). Did Aafia ever have contact with the Program in Neuroscience at the University of Texas Health Science Center? The program is at the Houston Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences where anthrax scientist Dr. Koehler is on the faculty. (Aafia was in the Brandeis Program in Neuroscience and her doctorate was in the neurological sciences.) The Program in Neuroscience is in Department of Neurobiology & Anatomy at 6431 Fannin Street.

Dr. Theresa M Koehler held a faculty appointment at the UT Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences. She was Associate Professor of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics. She has had grants from the CIA, the National Institutes of Health, and others for her work on virulence. Dr. Koehler’s address is 6431 Fannin, Houston — the same as the Program in Neuroscience. Her office was in the same complex, in the connected John Freeman Building. In Fall 2001, Dr. Koehler said she had taken the anthrax vaccine and that she got anthrax strains from Porton Down. In the Spring of 2003, Dr. Koehler explained that “It’s critical to use a genetically complete strain of the [anthrax] bacterium in experiments involving virulence.” A government study reported in April 2003 found that all of the labs that had received grants from the National Institutes of Health had unobstructed access to the floors with critical labs.

Ten million gallons of water were unleashed on the UT Medical School at Houston June 9, 2001 by Tropical Storm Allison. The basement, where the anthrax lab was located, was the hardest hit. More than 400 emergency personnel (internal and contracted) attempted to address the devastation. Throughout June, no equipment could be removed or powered up. Stairwell doors needed to be kept closed. By the first week of July 2001, the basement and ground floor was still off limits, and only one entrance was available. Ground floor occupants needed to continue to work at their temporary sites. Gross mold spore counts continued to be beyond acceptable limits in the basement, which was ventilated separately from the rest of the building.

The building was opened for business on July 11, 2001 but the ground floor and basement were construction remediation sites and off-limits except to access elevators to upper levels. Two entrances to the building were available: on the Webber Plaza side of the building near the circle drive and at the breezeway near the guard’s desk. Occupants were reminded in an employee newsletter not to block open stair well doors on any floor.

Did the anthrax lab in the basement have virulent Ames anthrax strain, to include Ames? (I don’t know of any indication and have no confirmation that they did). But if they did, what was done with the isolates during the devastation caused in the basement by the flood? At the time it was lawful to have virulent anthrax in its liquid form in a BL-2 facility, contrary to the occasional misperception; a hood is used in handling such isolates. A University President explained as much in a letter in connection with the incident when some live Ames spores were sent by Northern Arizona to Los Alamos in Fall 2001.

Members of the lab brought out the champagne at the lab in late 2001 when a special visa was granted to a research team member, who without it would have had to return to China. “We knew it was going to be risky,” said Dr. Koehler, a microbiologist at the school who for the past 20 years has studied the anthrax bacterium now being used as a terrorist weapon. “The question was whether current events would convince federal officials that [the researcher’s] skills are in the national interest or make them restrict workers from certain countries.”

“It is a horrible feeling to think that it could be someone I know, that the perpetrator is a microbiologist among us,” said Dr. Koehler. In September 2001, Dr. Koehler explained her anthrax research, how terrorists might deploy anthrax as a biological weapon and how physicians would treat it.

Aafia’s brother in 2001 was associated with addresses in Ann Arbor, Detroit, and Canton, Michigan — and even Harrison, NJ — in 2001, but there is no indication that Aafia visited him at those locations. Nor is there any indication she visited him in Houston when he and his family moved there in 2001. The ACLU attorney representing Aafia’s family advised me that it had been years since she was Houston — certainly before 2001 and maybe not since she was married. She added that if Aafia was there, it was to visit her brother, who has nothing to do with the med center.” The attorney reports: “there is no way they could have helped her get access to the necessary labs at the med center.” The attorney had no reason to know that among other things, that not only were the doors at Aafia’s old university building not locked, upon the massive flooding, they were propped open.

On Research Day in 2003, the award winners for Biomedical Excellence included a graduate student working in Dr. Koehler’s lab, Melissa Drysdale, who worked on gene regulation in a virulent strain of bacillus anthracis.

Dr. Koehler received, for example, the Weybridge strain from Porton Down prior to the Fall of 2001. Did Dr. Koehler have virulent Ames from either Porton Down or somewhere else? (Her mentor was the eminent vaccine researcher Dr. Curtis Thorne who got samples directly from Ft. Detrick).

Remember: Khalid Mohammed, who told authorities about Aafia, had anthrax production documents on his assistant’s laptop (the guy working with Aafia’s future husband in UAE in the summer of 2001). She allegedly was associated with both KSM and “Jafar the Pilot” who is at large. She later married an Al Qaeda operative al-Baluchi who, like al-Hawsawi, had been listed as a contact for the hijackers and took over plots upon the arrest of KSM. Authorities have said that a Pakistani scientist , who they refused to name was helping Al Qaeda with its anthrax production program. Were they referring to bacteriologist Abdul Qudus Khan in whose home the Pakistan authorities claim KSM was captured? Was it Rauf Ahmad who Zawahiri sent to infiltrate UK biodefense? Was it the chemistry professor who met with Uzair Paracha in February 2003? Or was it Aafia who was alleged to be a “facilitator” who handled logistics. “Logistics” is handling an operation that involves providing labor and materials as needed. According to a UN dossier reviewed by a journalist at the Wall Street Journal, in June 2001 she allegedly traveled to Liberia (I’m very skeptical) to meet Al Qaeda’s military commander, Atef, who had been head of the anthrax planning. A key to analysis is to determine whether the chauffeur who claims the lady was Aafia is lying or mistaken. A FBI memo from 2003 titled “Allegations Relating to al Qaeda’s Trafficking in Conflict Diamonds,” and a related 2004 presentation to the intelligence community, debunking the allegations relating to trafficking in conflict diamonds. The memo was declassified in 2006 and provided under FOIA in February 2008 to intelwire.com. If those documents represent the FBI’s current thinking, there is good reason to think Aafia never went to Liberia in June 2001.

The ACLU in a February 2004 publication called “Sanctioned Bias: Racial Profiling Since 9/11” described Aafia’s brother first encounter with the FBI. Muhammad A. Siddiqui is an architect in Houston and father of two young children. When his mom and sister called him to say the FBI had questioned him, he called ACLU attorney Annette Lamoreaux. It was a Monday evening when two FBI agents came to visit. “I’d be happy to talk to you, but I’d like to have my attorney present.” Borrowing a page from your favorite television show, one of the FBI agents suggested he didn’t need an attorney. He said that asking for an attorney only made him look guilty. The FBI agent again said that he wanted to speak to him now, greatly emphasizing the word “now.”

Following the advice of his civil rights attorney, he repeated: “I’d be happy to talk to you, but I’d like to have my attorney present.” In response to the FBI’s continuing pressure, he called Attorney Lamoreaux on his cell phone. She told the FBI agent that the agent could call her office during the day and set up an appointment. He screamed at Lamoreaux that Siddiqui did not have a right to counsel (as he was not in custody). Repeating her earlier suggestion that the agent call her on Monday, she told the agent “and you are to leave the house immediately.” The FBI agent handed the cell phone back to Siddiqui. Muhammad did not feel comfortable telling the agents to leave and so he kept politely repeating his attorney’s advice. “Turn off that cell phone!” the agent demanded.

Siddiqui reasonably refused, at least wanting to permit his attorney to serve as a witness to the questioning. From Siddiqui’s point of view, at least, the FBI agent pulled back his coat to reveal a gun. Siddiqui repeats that he was afraid — his children were inside and his wife, a busy doctor who worked at the local medical center, was not at home.

“I do this all the time. As soon as there is a lawyer in the picture, they have to play by the rules,” Lamoreaux explains.

The agents — thwarted — turned away. One of them said upon leaving: “We will talk to you. We are watching you. Don’t leave town.”

When the agent called on Monday, Attorney Lamoreaux suggested that they meet on Thursday when Siddiqui was free from work and child care responsibilities. The agent insisted on meeting that day and said he would stand outside of Siddiqui’s home until he came out and spoke to them. At the 15 minute meeting held that day at Lamoreaux’s office, the agent confirmed he had never been a criminal target. Mr. Siddiqui says, “Once there was counsel involved, attitudes changed dramatically. Laws started to mean something.”

Someone with the same common name, as mentioned in the court record relating to Project Bojinka. United States of America v. Ramzi Ahmed Yousef et al, (August 26, 1996), page 5118. A letter was read into the record
“To: Brother Mohammad Alsiddiqi. We are facing a lot of problems because of you. Fear Allah. Mr. Siddiqi, there is a day of judgment. You will be asked, if you are very busy with something more important, don’t give promises to other people. See you in the day of judgment. Still waiting, Khalid Shaikh, and Bojinka.”

In addition to many people having this very common name, people often used aliases. The attorney, Dietrich Snell, at the time was under the impression it related to a solicitation for money. Attorney Snell was from the US Attorney’s Office. More recently, Snell acted as counsel for the 9/11 Commission. He served as Deputy Attorney General for Public Advocacy under Eliot Spitzer. What was the address of the recipient? Who was Muhammad Siddiqui with whom KSM corresponded?

Attorney General Ashcroft and Director Mueller made an on-the-record renewed push to find Aafia Siddiqui in a press conference on May 26, 2004 shortly after ACLU Attorney Annette Lamoreaux responded to my emailed inquiries about Aafia. Three days after the Pakistan Ministry of Interior claimed she had been handed over to US authorities in late March 2003.

There are the many questions surrounding the mystery of the disappearance of the lovely, intelligent and pious Aafia Siddiqui. Aafia once had an MIT alumni email account forwarded to umaisha@yahoo.com — which under one translation means lively mom. Aisha was the Prophet’s favorite wife. Maybe correspondence in that email account held the answers.

In a Pakistan news account, Attorney Whitfield Sharp says she doesn’t know of any police report filed by the mom. In the same account, she reports that Aafia received job offer at both John Hopkins and the State University of New York (SUNY). It likely was SUNY downstate in Brooklyn where her sister had gone to school and lived. (Her mother Ismat is associated with addresses in Brooklyn, as well as Massachusetts, in Houston, and in Ann Arbor where Mohammad’s wife had a medical practice. Mohammad is associated with some Ann Arbor and Detroit-area addresses. Ann Arbor, coincidentally, was where IANA was located, as well as the President of Global Relief.

When he was captured, Al-Baluchi, Khalid Mohammed’s nephew and Aafia Siddiqui’s husband, “was in possession of a perfume spray bottle which contained a low concentration of cyanide when he was arrested.” He was the fellow who met with Majid Khan about using a textiles shipping container to smuggle an unidentified chemical into the country. Cyanide in perfume bottles had been suggested for use in nightclubs in Indonesia but Bin Laden reportedly nixed the plan as ineffectual.

The transcript from the Combatant Status Review Tribunal explains:

MEMBER [AL-BALUCHI]: While you were in Pakistan you describe the cyanide…
DETAINEE: [Interrupting the Member]
MEMBER: … you had in your possession, a small amount, as being textile, chemical-oriented.
DETAINEE: Yes.
MEMBER: Why would you have that on your person?
DETAINEE: Just I have. Wasn’t for specific purpose but I have. It’s ah…
MEMBER: Did you have an intent to use it once you got there? What were you going to do with it?
DETAINEE: No, no. Just ah, it’s use for clothing to remove the color. And something in Pakistan it’s something that they do. It’s bleach like kinda bleach but industrial bleach so.”

Now we are told that Aafia Siddiqui had a liquid poison on her. Well... maybe Attorney Sharp will explain that Aafia just did Al-Balucchi’s laundry.

According to the DOD formal charges issued in February 2008, KSM would give the hijackers a chemical in an eye dropper to remove Pakistan visas from their passport. Perhaps the low concentration of cyanide in the perfume bottle used to remove stains just related to that — rather than consideration of a plot to spray cyanide in a nightclub that had been vetoed by Bin Laden.

But here’s a Helpful Heloise Tip. Before attempting to get that damn spot out, first get rid of that incriminating pocket litter. The transcript from the hearing on al-Baluchi’s status as an “unlawful combatant” continues: “The Detainee’s pocket litter included a letter from unidentified Saudi Arabian scholars to Usama bin Laden. The letter discussed al Qaida’s strategy in the War on Terror.”

Aafia had info on bio, chem and radiological military assets, the usual (now cliched info on NYC landmarks, etc. These Al Qaeda operatives obviously have not taken to heart Ayman’s online book (in Arabic) on COVERT OPERATIONS.

Now the FBI made Bruce Ivins sign a promise not to talk to anyone about the investigation. Everyone has focused on how his emotional supports were undermined without focusing on the most direct way they were undermined. He was forbidden to talk about it. The USG has pulled the same trick by making it illegal to talk about how Al Qaeda TOLD THE ADMINISTRATION THEY WERE GOING TO USE ANTHRAX IF THE BAIL WAS DENIED FOR THE VANGUARDS OF CONQUEST #2. BAIL WAS DENIED ON OCTOBER 5. ANTHRAX WAS SENT ON OCTOBER 6. UNITED STATES ATTORNEY JEFFREY TAYLOR OR FBI DIRECTOR ROBERT MUELLER, AS PART OF YOUR PRESENTATION TO US CONGRESS, PROVIDE A DECLASSIFIED VERSION OF THE FEBRUARY 2001 PDB IN WHICH WARNING THAT ANTHRAX WAS USED WAS GIVEN.

In mid-January 2001, it was announced that the former boss of al-Hawsawi, the guy with the anthrax spraydrying documents on his laptop, was going to have a bail hearing. His name was Mahjoub. Ayman Zawahiri was #1. Mahjoub was #2. The group was the Egyptian Islamic Jihad but with a cooler name — the Vanguards of Conquest. A letter was received January 30, 2001 at the Citizenship and Immigration Office threatening to use anthrax. It was sent to Immigration Minister Elinor Caplan who had cosigned the detention certificate. Authorities suspected that the letter was sent by militant islamists in protest over the detention of Mahjoub, who ran Bin Laden’s farm in Sudan. Mahjoub had been sentenced in absentia to 15 years in prison in 1999 by Egyptian authorities for his involvement in Egyptian Islamic Jihad. Now, he was being detained without charges under an order cosigned by Immigration Minister Caplan and threatened with deportation. The postmark has never been publicly identified. Separately, hoax letters were also sent to American businesses and a Walmart in Saanich, British Columbia. Mahjoub had been in regular contact with a man named Marzouk, who had trained the 1998 embassy bombers and was captured in Baku, Azerbaijan in August 1998.

When the letter was received in January 2001, the letter was sent by Department of National Defence jet to the Canadian Science Center for Human and Animal Health in Winnipeg for examination. Authorities also sent the filters from the Jean Edmonds building’s ventilation system. Authorities said they were treating it as a possible terrorist act against the department and noted that it “was the first time a government department has been targeted in this way.” The Ottawa alert came after one of the employees working in the Minister’s office opened a plain white envelope at 11:15 a.m. The employee discovered powder and a piece of paper in the envelope. Police refused to reveal from where it had been mailed. One source said the letter was unsigned and “mostly gibberish.” (Indeed, the Fall 2001 letters might be described as mostly gibberish, and certainly the “JLo letter” — talking about Jennifer Lopez’ planned wedding — could be.) An internal government memo distributed to staff said “an initial analysis of the envelope revealed some traces of bacteria.”

Bill Patrick, who often worked with George Mason University students in northern Virginia, had written a report in 1999 for a consultant SAIC at the request of Dr. Steve Hatfill. As one bioterrorism expert commented about the report: “Anytime you pick something up like this, and it seems to layout the whole story for you months or years before the fact, your immediate response is to step back and say ‘whoa, something may be going on here. “Our attacker may very well have used this report as something of a — if not a template, then certainly as a rule of thumb.”

After the January 2001 anthrax threat, Canadian defense research team undertook to assess the risk. The report titled “Risk Assessment of Anthrax Threat Letters” issued September 2001. In contrast to the 1998 study by William Patrick that had been requested by Dr. Hatfill’s employer SAIC, the Canadian study found considerable exposure to those in the room resulted when such a letter was opened. Bacillus globigii spores (in dry powder form) were donated by the US Department of Defense (Dugway Proving Ground, Utah). Stock concentration powder was -1 x 10 11 cfu/gm. The anthrax sent to the Senators had a smaller particle size –tending toward a uniform 1 micron, subject to clumping that easily broke apart. Bacillus globigii (BG) spores are routinely used as a simulant for Bacillus anthracis (anthrax) spores. “The letter was prepared by putting BG spores in the center of a sheet of paper, folding it over into thirds, placing the folded sheet into the envelope and sealing using the adhesive present on the envelope. The envelope was then shaken to mimic the handling and tumbling that would occur during its passage through the postal system.” The aerosol, produced by opening the BG spore containing envelope, was not confined to the area of the desk but spread throughout the chamber. Values were almost as high at the opposite end of the chamber, shortly after opening the envelopes. 99% of the particles collected were in the 2.5 to 10 mm size range. The report explained: “In addition, the aerosol would quickly spread throughout the room so that other workers, depending on their exact locations and the directional air flow within the office, would likely inhale lethal doses. Envelopes with the open corners not specifically sealed could also pose a threat to individuals in the mail handling system.”

More than 80% of the B anthracis particles collected on stationary monitors were within an alveolar respirable size range of 0.95 to 3.5 µm. Thus, the simulant performed very well. Those who continue to argue that the Daschle product was so advanced beyond what the US could do are mistaken. Indeed, the more notable question is why such a good product was prepared in response to a threat letter sent to an immigration minister. The reason perhaps is that authorities knew that it was Al Qaeda and Egyptian Islamic Jihad that sent the letter. The CIA and CSIS apparently feared that the Vanguards of Conquest would use the good stuff.

The CIA knew EIJ intended to use anthrax — from the proclamations of Jaballah’s friend, the captured military commander Mabruk and Jaballah’s brother-in-law’s former law partner al-Zayat. Authorities knew Al Qaeda was getting technical assistance from scientists — and that many of the senior Egyptian leaders had advanced or technical degrees. The specifications provided by Dugway perhaps involved treated fumed silica and a spraydryer (with a last critical step reserved to be done at Dugway) likely were based on what Al Qaeda might send with a little help from their friends.

Canadian officials explained they e-mailed the study to the CDC soon after reports of the discovery of anthrax at the American Media Inc. headquarters in Florida. The e-mail, however, was never opened, reports the lead CDC anthrax investigator, who regrets that he never read the email. “It is certainly relevant data, but I don’t think it would have altered the decisions that we made.” At one point, about 2,000 CDC employees were working on the anthrax matter. This Canadian report was perhaps the single most important scientific data point for the CDC to take into account. It certainly was one of the most important reports for the FBI to take into account. Yet I dare anyone to ask US Attorney Jeffrey Taylor if he has ever read it. Bail was denied by decision on October 5, 2001. Then highly potent anthrax was sent the next day just as had been promised. But Ayman had returned to the target of his greatest interest — rather than a Canadian immigration minister, he and Shehata and their colleagues targeted the minister who oversaw the Department of Justice and appropriations to Egypt and Israel, and who gave his name (”the Leahy Law”) to the law that permits continuing appropriations to Egypt in the face of allegations of torture. Zawahiri never makes a threat he doesn’t intend to try to keep.

The Canadian experiments in 2001 showed that if anthrax spores were finely powdered, a letter could release thousands of lethal doses of the bacteria within minutes of being opened. Furthermore, large amounts of material leaked out of sealed envelopes even before they were opened. By then, more than two dozen federal government employees knew of the Canadian studies, which showed that a real anthrax threat letter was a far more dangerous weapon than anyone had believed. Within days, a dozen more people were informed of the now highly relevant experimental findings. One FBI squad was focused on people who may have known of the study — such as William Patrick’s friend, Dr. Steve Hatfill. Another squad would be focused on the usual suspects and their friends. For the next seven years, the investigation would be shrouded in great secrecy.

Then when the FBI did reveal what they were doing, it was revealed that they had screwed the pooch without even having the sense to use a fake screen name.

I’d appreciate it if you ping me to these long posts by a separate brief ping posting calling attention to it, not a ping with the text.

“I infer from the NBC report that from the isotope ratios, authorities believe either that the anthrax was grown in one of the yellow (or perhaps light green) areas, but not one of the dark green, blue or red areas on Ehrlinger’s map.”

Well, if bottled water was used, the analysis is useless. And, if the perpetrators knew that isotopic analysis would dime them out, buying a very small quantity of heavy water would foul that up royally. You can buy heavy water online.

But, oh my, you say, Dr. Bruce Ivins knew on September 26, 2001 that Al Qaeda had anthrax and had issued a fatwa against Americans and Jews.

Um, yeah. Anthrax was his field. The US had just been attacked. A man in a biohazard suit had just been featured on the cover of TIME magazine. We would expect him to know something on the subject and be commenting to friends and colleagues about whether he thought Al Qaeda had anthrax.

The CIA has known of Zawahiri’s plans to use anthrax since July 1998, when the CIA seized a disc from Ayman Zawahiri’s right-hand, Ahmed Mabruk, during his arrest outside a restaurant in Baku, Azerbaijan. At the time, Mabruk was the head of Jihad’s military operations. Mabruk was handed over to Egyptian authorities. A close associate and former cellmate in Dagestan in 1996, Mabruk was at Ayman’s side while Ayman would fall to his knees during trial and weep and invoke Allah. Their captors reportedly did not know the true identity of the prisoners.

After Mabruk’s capture in Baku, Azerbaijan, the CIA refused to give the FBI Mabruk’s laptop. FBI’s Bin Laden expert John O’Neill, head of the FBI’s New York office, tried to get around this by sending an agent to Azerbaijan to get copies of the computer files from the Azerbaijan government. The FBI finally got the files after O’Neill persuaded President Clinton to personally appeal to the president of Azerbaijan for the computer files. FBI Special Agent Dan Coleman would later describe the laptop as the “Rosetta Stone of Al Qaeda.” O’Neill died on 9/11 in his role as head of World Trade Center security. He died with the knowledge that Ayman Zawahiri planned to attack US targets with anthrax — and that Zawahiri does not make a threat that he does not intend to try to keep.

Mabruk claimed that Zawahiri intended to use anthrax against US targets. At the time, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (”DTRA”) set up a program at Lawrence Livermore to combat the Bin Laden anthrax threat. The CIA also snatched Egyptian Al-Najjar, another senior Al Qaeda member (a shura or policy-making council member no less) who had been working for the Egyptian intelligence services. Al-Najjar confirmed Ayman’s intent to use weaponized anthrax against US targets in connection with the detention of militant islamists in a sworn lengthy confession. Even Zawahiri’s friend, Cairo lawyer Montasser al-Zayat, who was the blind sheik’s attorney, in March 1999 said that Bin Laden and Zawahiri were likely to resort to the biological and chemical agents they possessed given the extradition pressure senior Al Qaeda leaders faced. That week, and thoughout that year, Al-Zayat was in touch by telephone with US Post Office employee Sattar and Islamic Group leaders about the group’s strategy to free the blind sheik. An islamist who had been a close associate of Zawahiri later would explain that Zawahiri spent a decade and had made 15 separate attempts to recruit the necessary expertise to weaponize anthrax in Russia and the Middle East.

Mabruk was in regular contact with Mahmoud Jaballah, who was in Toronto beginning May 1996. Although Mabruk changed his location every few months, Jaballah kept aware of his whereabouts through his contacts with Jaballah’s brother-in-law Shehata. Shehata was in charge of EIJ’s “special operations.” When Mabruk was arrested and imprisoned in Dagestan along with Zawahiri, Jaballah was told, on December 13, 1996 that Mabruk was “hospitalized.” That is established code for “in jail” and, for example, is the code used by Zawahiri in emails on the same subject. Jaballah raised funds for Mabruk’s release and coordinated these collection efforts with Shehata. Indeed, it was Jaballah’s brother-in-law Shehata who brought the money to Dagestan to arrange for Zawahiri’s and Mabruk’s release. Correspondence between Mabruk and Jaballah in 1997 reports on Jaballah’s recruitment efforts. Mabruk, EIJ’s military commander, was pleased. Jaballah confirmed with Shehata and Mabruk his view of the reliability of the individuals he had recruited. His recruits were affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood. They did not sing in the choir at the local Catholic Church.

Al-Timimi’s defense counsel, Professor Jonathan Turley, wrote an Op-Ed this past week arguing that the United States government faces civil liability for letting a dangerous person access to its anthrax program. I would have to say that the distinguished professor from George Washington University is correct.

In a filing unsealed this Spring, Professor Turley separately explained that his client “was considered an anthrax weapons suspect.” Al-Timimi was a computational biologist who had worked in the building housing the “Center for Biodefense” funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (”DARPA”). He came to have an office 15 feet from the leading anthrax scientist and the former deputy commander of USAMRIID. Dr. Al-Timimi’s counsel summarizes:

“we know Dr. Al-Timimi:
* was interviewed in 1994 by the FBI and Secret Service regarding his ties to the perpetrators of the first World Trade Center bombing;
* was referenced in the August 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Briefing (”Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US”) as one of seventy individuals regarding whom the FBI is conducting full field investigations on a national basis;
* was described to his brother by the FBI within days of the 9-11 attacks as an immediate suspect in the Al Qaeda conspiracy;
* was contacted by the FBI only nine days after 9-11 and asked about the attacks and its perpetrators;
* was considered an anthrax weapons suspect;
[redacted]
* was described during his trial by FBI agent John Wyman as having “extensive ties” with the “broader al-Qaeda network”;
* was described in the indictment and superseding indictment as being associated with terrorists seeking harm to the United States;
* was a participant in dozens of international overseas calls to individuals known to have been under suspicion of Al-Qaeda ties like Al-Hawali; and
* was associated with the long investigation of the Virginia Jihad Group.
***
The conversation with [Bin Laden’s sheik] Al-Hawali on September 19, 2001 was central to the indictment and raised at trial. Al-Timimi called Dr. Hawali after the dinner with Kwon on September 16, 2001 and just two hours before he met with Kwon and Hassan for the last time on September 19, 2001.

[911 imam] Anwar Al-Aulaqi goes directly to Dr. Al-Timimi’s state of mind and his role in the alleged conspiracy. The 9-11 Report indicates that Special Agent Ammerman interviewed Al-Aulaqi just before or shortly after his October 2002 visit to Dr. Al-Timimi’s home to discuss the attacks and his efforts to reach out to the U.S. government.
[IANA head] Bassem Khafagi was questioned about Dr. Al-Timimi before 9-11 in Jordan, purportedly at the behest of American intelligence. [redacted ] He was specifically asked about Dr. Al-Timimi’s connection to Bin Laden prior to Dr. Al-Timimi’s arrest. He was later interviewed by the FBI about Dr. Al-Timimi. Clearly, such early investigations go directly to the allegations of Dr. Al-Timimi’s connections to terrorists and Bin Laden — [redacted]”

The letter by Al-Timimi’s counsel attached as an exhibit is equally meaty. An example of an additional detail is that in March 2002, Dr. Al-Timimi spoke with Dr. Al-Hawali (Bin Laden’s sheik who was the subject of OBL’s “Declaration of War”) about assisting Moussaoui in his defense.
The filing and the letter exhibit each copy defense co-counsel, the daughter of the lead prosecutor in Amerithrax. That prosecutor has pled the Fifth Amendment concerning all the leaks hyping a “POI” of the other Amerithrax squad, Dr. Steve Hatfill.

In an e-mail forwarded by USAMRIID researcher Bruce Ivins to FOX News, scientists at Fort Detrick openly discussed how the anthrax powder they were asked to analyze after the attacks was nearly identical to that made by one of their colleagues.

“Then he said he had to look at a lot of samples that the FBI had prepared ... to duplicate the letter material.” “Then the bombshell. He said that the best duplication of the material was the stuff made by [name redacted; FoxNews Catherine Herridge knows this name but is being coy]. He said that it was almost exactly the same — his knees got shaky and he sputtered, ‘But I told the General we didn’t make spore powder!’”

FOX News reports:

“The FBI has narrowed its focus to ‘about four’ suspects in the 6 1/2-year investigation of the deadly anthrax attacks of 2001, and at least three of those suspects are linked to the Army’s bioweapons research facility at Fort Detrick in Maryland, FOX News has learned.

Among the pool of suspects are three scientists — a former deputy commander, a leading anthrax scientist and a microbiologist — linked to the research facility, known as USAMRIID.”

Ali Al-Timimi worked in the same building as famed Russian bioweapons scientist Ken Alibek and former USAMRIID Deputy Commander and Acting Commander Charles Bailey. Al-Timimi was a current associate and former student of Bin Laden’s spiritual advisor, dissident Saudi Sheik al-Hawali. While anthrax scientist Bruce Ivins was dwelling on the girls of Kappa Kappa Gamma, Ali Al-Timimi was preaching on the end of times and the inevitability of the clash of civlizations. He was in active contact with the sheik whose detention had been the express subject of Bin Laden’s 1996 Declaration of War. At GMU, Dr. Bailey would publish a lot of research with the “Ames strain” of anthrax. The anthrax used in the anthrax mailings was traced to Bruce Ivins’ lab at USAMRIID, where Ivins, according to a former colleague, had done some work for DARPA that had included drying anthrax using a lyophilizer. Ali would speak along with the blind sheik’s son at charity conferences. — the blind sheik’s son served on Al Qaeda’s WMD committee. Al-Timimi’s mentor Bilal Philips was known for recruiting members of the military to jihad. The first week after 9/11, FBI agents questioned Al-Timimi. He was a graduate student in a program jointly run by George Mason University and the American Type Culture Collection (”ATCC”). Ali, according to his lawyer, had been questioned by an FBI agent and Secret Service agent in 1994 after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. He had a high security clearance for work for the Navy in the late 1990s. The defense webpage reported that in 1996, for two months had worked for the White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card (who had been Secretary of Transportation in 1992-1993). As time off from his university studies permitted, Ali was an active speaker with the charity Islamic Assembly of North America.

The government claims that silicon was detected and yet nowhere explains how it came to be present in the anthrax attack if not present in the anthrax found in Ivins’ flask. An unnamed FBI source reports that anthrax has a natural tendency to absorb silicon from its environment if it is present in the culture medium or water used to grow it. The government finds it notable that Ivins worked late at the office. If you folks have any sense, you will be out having an affair with someone who adopted a fake name rather than working at the office because you like to hang out there.

"before moving off the radar screen and presumably driving overnight to Princeton"

Or, going home to bed.

What proof does the FBI have that he didn't just go home, have a beer, watch the news, and go to bed?

Good question. Ft Detrick to Princeton is a 320 mile round trip, minimum.

Instead of inferring guilt for 5 capital murders based on working late, and speculating on possible alternative motives for sending deadly anthrax to Senator Daschle, let’s consider the documentary evidence relating to motive and intent.

George Tenet in his May 2007 In the Center of the Storm says: “Al-Qa’ida spared no effort in its attempt to obtain biological weapons. In 1999, al-Zawahiri had recruited another scientist, Pakistani national Rauf Ahmad, to set up a small lab in Khandahar, Afghanistan, to house the biological weapons effort. In December 2001, a sharp WMD analyst at CIA found the initial lead on which we would pull and, ultimately, unravel the al-Qa’ida anthrax networks. We were able to identify Rauf Ahmad from letters he had written to Ayman al-Zawahiri. ... We located Rauf Ahmad’s lab in Afghanistan. We identified the building in Khandahar where Sufaat claimed he isolated anthrax. We mounted operations that resulted in the arrests and detentions of anthrax operatives in several countries.”

Milton Leitenberg wrote in a chapter on evolving threats in Wenger and Wollenmann’s 2007 BIOTERRORISM: CONFRONTING A COMPLEX THREAT (2007):

“The first significant and meaningful information on what Al-Qaida may at some point have hoped to achieve in the area of bioweapons appeared on a single page in the journal SCIENCE in mid-December 2003, and then in declassified documents that were obtained in the last week of March 2004.
Appended to the single page in SCIENCE via the internet address was a list of thirty-two items: eleven books and twenty-one professional journal papers nearly all dating from the 1950s and 1960s dealing with pathogens or bioweapons.”

He explained: “They were found in Al Qaida training camp near Kandahar, Afghanistan, in December 2001. Half of the books dealt with historic or general aspects of bioweapons and would be of little practical use in an effort to produce bioweapons agents. However, at least some of the journal papers and the remaining half of the books might have been useful in such an effort. They were found only a few kilometers from the site near the Kandahar airport that confirmed the rudimentary equipment also procured by Al-Qaida.”Most important of all, the documents indicated that “al-Qaida’s BW initiative included recruitment of individuals with PhD-level expertise who supported planning and acquisition efforts by their familiarity with the scientific community.”

Mr. Leitenberg concludes: “If it should turn out, as is currently assumed, that the Amerithrax perpetrator came from within the US government’s own biodefense program, with access to strains, laboratories, people and knowledge, then all previous conceptions about the significance of the events would be substantially altered.” He observes that “Al-Qaeda has actively recruited educated college graduates and ... specifically sought individuals with particular knowledge and training. ... Such recruiting patterns do not automatically translate into either an interest or capability in bioweapons, but they would be a key advantage should the interests of such a group turn in that direction, as Al-Zawahiri’s [1999] memorandum quoted above suggests they may.”

Thus, Gerald Posner’s reference to Al Qaeda being in caves in Afghanistan on Keith Olberman last week indicates he is not paying sufficient attention.

In 1999, a scientist from Porton Down had reported to sfam members on a conference in Taos, New Mexico in August that included a talk by Tim Read, (TIGR, Rockville, USA) and concerned the whole genome sequencing of the Bacillus anthracis Ames strain. The Ames strain may have been a mystery to many after the Fall 2001 mailings, but not to motivated Society for Applied Microbiology (”SFAM”) members, one of whom was part of Ayman Zawahiri’s “Project Zabadi.”

As described by Dr. Peter Turnbull’s Conference report for SFAM on “the First European Dangerous Pathogens Conference” (held in Winchester) , at the September 1999 conference, the lecture theater only averaged about 75 at peak times by his head count. There had been a problem of defining “dangerous pathogen” and a “disappointing representation from important institutions in the world of hazard levels 3 and 4 organisms.” Papers included a summary of plague in Madagascar and another on the outbreak management of hemorrhagic fevers. Dr Paul Keim of Northern Arizona University presented a paper on multilocus VNTR typing, for example, of Bacillus anthracis and Yersinia pestis. There were more than the usual no-show presenters and fill-in speakers. In his report, Dr. Turnbull looked forward to a second, fully international conference in 2000 focused on the ever increasing problems surrounding hazard levels 3 and 4 organisms and aimed at international agreement on the related issues. University of Maryland researcher Milton Leitenberg reports that the conferences described in the correspondence had been in July and September 1999.

The Sunday at the start of the Organization of the Dangerous Pathogens meeting in September 2000, which the sfam director confirmed to me that Rauf Ahmad also attended, was gloomy. Planning had proved even more difficult than the International Conference on anthrax also held at the University of Plymouth, in September 1998. The overseas delegates included a sizable contingent from Russia. The organizers needed to address many thorny issues regarding who could attend. One of the scientists in attendance was Rauf Ahmad. The Washington Post reports: “The tall, thin and bespectacled scientist held a doctorate in microbiology but specialized in food production, according to U.S. officials familiar with the case.” Les Baillie the head of the biodefense technologies group at Porton Down ran the scientific program. Many of the delegates took an evening cruise round Plymouth harbour — the cold kept most from staying out on the deck. Later attendees visited the National Marine Aquarium — with a reception in view of a large tankful of sharks. Addresses include presentations on plagues of antiquity, showing how dangerous infectious diseases had a profound that they changed the course of history. Titles include “Magna pestilencia - Black Breath, Black Rats, Black Death”, “From Flanders to Glanders,” as well as talks on influenza, typhoid and cholera. The conference was co-sponsored by DERA, the UK Defence Evaluation and Research Agency.

Les Baillie of Porton Down gave a presentation titled, “Bacillus anthracis: a bug with attitude!” He argued that anthrax was a likely pathogen to be used by terrorists. As described at the time by Phil Hanna of University of Michigan Medical School on the sfam webpage, Baillie “presented a comprehensive overview of this model pathogen, describing its unique biology and specialized molecular mechanisms for pathogenesis and high virulence. He went on to describe modern approaches to exploit new bioinformatics for the development of potential medical counter measures to this deadly pathogen.” Bioinformatics was the field that Ali Al-Timimi, who had a security clearance for some government work and who had done work for the Navy, would enter by 2000 at George Mason University in Virginia.

Despite the cold and the sharks, amidst all the camaraderie and bonhomie no one suspected that despite the best efforts, a predator was on board — on a coldly calculated mission to obtain a pathogenic anthrax strain. The conference organizer Peter Turnbull had received funding from the British defense ministry but not from public health authorities, who thought anthrax too obscure to warrant the funding. By 2001, sponsorship of the conference was assumed by USAMRIID.

According to the Pakistan press, a scientist named Rauf Ahmad was picked up in October 2001 by the CIA in Karachi. The most recent of the correspondence reportedly dates back to the summer and fall of 1999. Even if Rauf Ahmad cooperated with the CIA, he apparently could only confirm the depth of Zawahiri’s interest in weaponizing anthrax and provided no “smoking gun” concerning the identity of those responsible for the anthrax mailings in the Fall 2001. His only connection with SFAM was a member of the society — he was not an employee. The Pakistan ISI, according to the Washington Post article in October 2006, stopped cooperating in regard to Rauf Ahmad in 2003.

I have uploaded scanned copies of some 1999 documents seized in Afghanistan by US forces describing the author’s visit to the special confidential room at the BL-3 facility where 1000s of pathogenic cultures were kept; his consultation with other scientists on some of technical problems associated with weaponizing anthrax; the bioreactor and laminar flows to be used in Al Qaeda’s anthrax lab; and the need for vaccination and containment. He explained that the lab director noted that he would have to take a short training course at the BL-3 lab for handling dangerous pathogens. Rauf Ahmad explained that his employer’s offer of pay during a 12-month post-doc sabbatical was wholly inadequate and was looking to Ayman to make up the difference. After an unacceptably low pay for the first 8 months, there would be no pay for last 4 months and there would be a service break. He had noted that he only had a limited time to avail himself of the post-doc sabbatical.

I also have uploaded a handwritten copy of earlier correspondence from before the lab visit described in the typed memo. The Defense Intelligence Agency provided the documents to me, along with 100+ pages more, pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act (”FOIA”). It turns out you just have to ask nice. 90 of the 100 pages are the photocopies of journal articles and disease handbook excerpts.

The Post, in an exclusive groundbreaking investigative report, recounts that the FBI’s New York office took the lead U.S. role — and its agents worked closely with the CIA and bureau officials in Pakistan in interrogating Rauf. Though not formally charged with any crimes, Rauf agreed to questioning. While the US media focused on the spectacle of bloodhounds alerting to Dr. Steve Hatfill and the draining of Maryland ponds, this former Al Qaeda anthrax operative provided useful leads. But problems began when the U.S. officials sought to pursue criminal charges, including possible indictment and prosecution in the United States. In earlier cases, such as the othopedic surgeon Dr. Amer Aziz who treated Bin Laden in the Fall of 2001, the Pakistani government angered the Pakistani public when it sought to prosecute professionals for alleged ties to al-Qaeda. In the case of Amer Aziz, hundreds of doctors, engineers and lawyers took to the streets to demand his release. In 2003, the Pakistanis shut off U.S. access to Rauf. By then, I had noticed the reporting of his arrest in a press article about the raid of a compound of doctors named Khawaja and published it on my website. According to Pakistani officials, there was not enough evidence showing that he actually succeeded in providing al-Qaeda with something useful. The CIA basically viewed him as an untalented loser. Since then, the Post reports, Rauf has been allowed to return to his normal life. Attempts by the Post to contact Rauf in Lahore were unsuccessful. Initially the government agency had said an interview would be possible but then backpedaled.

“He was detained for questioning, and later the courts determined there was not sufficient evidence to continue detaining him,” Pakistan’s information minister told the Post. “If there was evidence that proved his role beyond a shadow of a doubt, we would have acted on it. But that kind of evidence was not available.” This statement is odd given the documentary evidence that Rauf Ahmad was part of a conspiracy to obtain the anthrax under false pretenses and then weaponize it for Al Qaeda.

Yazid Sufaat got the job handling things at the lab instead of Rauf Ahmad. More importantly, Zawahiri, if keeping with his past experience, would have kept things strictly compartmentalized — leaving the Amerithrax Task Force much to do. Dr. Ahmad sent me his resume but then lost touch when he realized I had his correspondence with Ayman. He hadn’t listed Ayman as a reference. Did the computational biologist working alongside the Hadron people at the Center for Biodefense — he was in a program sponsored by the American Type Culture Collection — list Andrew Card as a reference on his resume. I spoke to his wife, who was very gracious, why Ali had a high security clearance when he worked with SRA in 1999, where the former deputy USAMRIID commander Bailey also worked in 1999. She said she could not answer any questions unless Ali’s counsel, Professor Turley, consented. His defense committee says only generally that he worked on mathematical support work for the Navy.

Gerald Posner has to understand the facts relating to Ali Al-Timimi before he speaks of Al Qaeda supporters living in caves. Heck, Aafia walked past Vollum (a different military strain) ever day in the Volen complex at Brandeis.

Why on earth is it even reasonable to think that Bruce Ivins would use the US Army strain for which he was the “go to” guy? 100 known people had access to the 8 strains known to be an identical match. If it is accessed and replicated once (unknown to the FBI), then that number greatly expands.

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Using the YouTube screen name BruceIvi, which he signed up for, as I recall, in February of this year, Dr. Ivins wrote a message about the TV show “Mole” (I’m not familiar with it) and an episode where he was commenting about gouging the eyes out of the mole. His other YouTube post, as I recall it, related to overcoming stress by juggling.

This issue of moles was well-illustrated perhaps by the recent Mata Hari Aafia who now faces an amended indictment in New York.

Raymond Zilinskas, who was researching a history of the Soviet bioweapons program, told The Baltimore Sun a couple years ago that “his sources now say that Soviet intelligence routinely obtained details of work at USAMRIID that went beyond the descriptions in scientific journals.” The Sun quoted him saying: “It was clear there was somebody at Fort Detrick” who worked for Soviet intelligence. Alexander Y. Kouzminov, a biophysicist who says he once worked for the KGB, had first made the claim in a book, Biological Espionage: Special Operations of the Soviet and Russian Foreign Intelligence Services in the West. Initially, Dr. Zilinskas had dismissed the memoir because the Russian had made separate fanciful inferences about the US program being offensive and some bizarre specific claims unrelated to infiltration of the US program.

The Sun article explained that then “another former Soviet scientist told The Sun that his lab routinely received dangerous pathogens and other materials from Western labs through a clandestine channel like the one Kouzminov described.” A second unnamed “U.S. arms control specialist” told the Sun he had independent evidence of a Soviet spy at Fort Detrick.”

The Baltimore Sun, in the 2006 article, also relied on GMU scientist Serguei Popov, who was “a scientist once based in a Soviet bioweapons lab in Obolensk, south of Moscow.” Dr. Popov “said that by the early 1980s his colleagues had obtained at least two strains of anthrax commonly studied in Detrick and affiliated labs. They included the Ames strain, first identified at Detrick in the early 1980s.” Ames was used for testing U.S. military vaccines and was the strain used in the 2001 anthrax letters that killed five people and infected 23 in the U.S. Dr. Popov is now at George Mason University’s National Center for Biodefense and Infectious Disease at in Fairfax, Va. (Disclaimer: I know and like Serge). “If you wanted ’special materials,’ you had to fill out a request,” he said. “And, essentially, those materials were provided. How and by whom, I can’t say.” One colleague, Popov told the Sun, used this “special materials” program to obtain a strain of Yersinia pestis, a plague bacterium being studied in a Western lab. But he didn’t know whether that particular germ came from Ft. Detrick. Former KGB operative and author Kouzminov says the KGB wanted specific items from Western labs — including Detrick — that were closely held and were willing to pay for the privilege. The Soviets also wanted the aerosol powders U.S. scientists developed for testing during vaccine tests.

Raymond Zilinskas, the bioweapons expert with the Monterey Institute of International Studies, and two colleagues wrote a scathing review of Biological Espionage in Nature, a British scientific journal. But Zilinskas later told The Sun “that his sources now say that Soviet intelligence routinely obtained details of work at USAMRIID that went beyond the descriptions in scientific journals.”

Expert William C. Patrick III, a retired Ft Detrick bioweapons expert, and famed Russian bioweaponeer Ken Alibek agree. Patrick’s suspicions arose when he debriefed defector Alibek in the early 1990s. Alibek emigrated to the U.S. upon the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991. Patrick and Alibek both recognized that the Soviet and American programs had moved in a curious lock step during the 1950s and ’60s. “Anything we discovered of any import, they would have discovered and would have in their program in six months,” Patrick told the Sun. After his talks with Alibek ended, he told the Sun: “For the next two weeks I tried to think, ‘Who the hell are the spies at Detrick?’”

Both former Russian bioweaponeers Ken Alibek and Serge Popov worked with Ali Al-Timimi at George Mason University. Dr. Al-Timimi has been convicted of sedition and sentenced to life plus 70 years. Popov and Alibek worked at the Center for Biodefense funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (”DARPA”). At one point, Al-Timimi worked not much more than 15 feet from both Dr. Alibek and former USAMRIID head Charles Bailey, who has been a prolific author and listed on a number of publications involving the virulent Ames strain. Neither Dr. Alibek nor Dr. Popov knew Ali to ever have worked on a biodefense project. He had a high security clearance for some work for the government, involving mathematical support work for the Navy, but no one seems to be able or willing to say what it involved. In the Fall of 2006, the Washington Post reported that when they raided his townhouse in late February 2003, two weeks after the capture of the son of blind sheik Abdel-Rahman, they suspected Al-Timimi of being somehow involved in the anthrax mailings. Mohammed Abdel-Rahman was on Al Qaeda’s 3-man WMD committee and had spoken alongside Ali Al-Timimi at conferences of the Islamic Assembly of North America in 1993 and 1996.

But never mind. The documentary evidence establishes that a couple years ago, Dr. Bruce Ivins was editing a Wikipedia entry and debating whether it was correct to list members who had left the sorority.

What’s Condi’s take on all this?

Condoleeza Rice addressed these bioterrorism issues in 1999 in “Introductory Remarks” in The New Terror: Facing The Threat Of Biological and Chemical Warfare in 1999. She wrote:

“One Sunday in November 1998, ‘Meet the Press’ viewers watched as Secretary of Defense William Cohen told that Iraq’s Saddam Hussein was trying to develop a massive biological and chemical weapons (BCW) capability. Cohen set a familiar yellow bag of Domino sugar in front of him, and noted that just that amount of anthrax could effectively poison the water supply of the City of New York.”

[Shame on KSM for implying it was his idea].

“Cohen wanted to garner public support for air strikes against Hussein in retaliaton for his refusal to permit UN inspections of suspected production sites for BCW. Cohen did something else, entirely, however — he reminded the people of their vulnerability to biological and chemical attacks, a vulnerability that today seems absolute.”

Secretary Rice continued:

“To date, there has been more heat than light on the subject of the BCW threat. It is all too early to let one’s imagination run so far and so fast that the standard problems of security appear insurmountable.”

She explained:

“In a democracy such as ours, there is no substitute for open and honest dialog about the impact of what we do on our laws and our values. Without that, no leader can pursue a coherent strategy confident of the support of the people.”
“No one would suggest the US become ‘Fortress America’ in order diminish the BCW threat, no matter how grave... Yet, improved intelligence in countering the threat does raise uncomfortable questions.”

She noted: “The human assets likely to be involved in BCW intelligence may be even more unsavory. Can we stomach those associations?”

Regardless whether the United States was, Ayman Zawahiri was willing to stomach the associations and had already sent operatives to infiltrate US and UK biodefense establishment.

(a re-post of critiques of the FBI work....
and I am NOT dogging the FBI.
This was/is a HARD case. But I pray the FBI hasn’t found a “fall guy”
in order to end a VERY DIFFICULT search for the origin of “Amerithrax”)

info on questions about the FBI’s conclusions on Ivins...

FBI accused of hardball tactics in anthrax case
http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/08/06/fbi.tactics/?iref=mpstoryview

Peter Hotez, chairman of microbiology at George Washington University,
rejected the government’s contention that Ivins’ access to a sophisticated
lab device called a lyophilizer — used to dry anthrax — was in
any way damning.

And Richard Spertzel, a former colleague of Ivins at Fort Detrick,
said there was “no way” a lyophilizer could have created the fine
anthrax spores used in the 2001 letters.

In addition, Spertzel said, no one working at a U.S. government
lab could have produced such high quality anthrax in secret.

Authorities closed in on KSM in Spring 2003. When arrested, US citizen and NYC resident Uzair Paracha said he had met in February 2003 a chemistry professor who was supposed to help Al Qaeda with biological and chemical weapons. It was a big break, therefore, when the son of the imprisoned blind sheik, Abdel Rahman, was captured in Quetta, Pakistan in mid-February 2003. Mohammed Abdel-Rahman from Aghanistan spoke alongside Ali Al-Timimi at IANA conferences in 1993 and 1996. The blind sheik’s son Mohammed Abdel-Rahman had recently had been in contact with Khalid Mohammed, Al Qaeda’s #3. Two weeks after Mohammed’s capture, authorities raided microbiologist Ali Al-Timimi’s townhouse in Alexandria, VA, and searched the residence of a couple of PhD level drying experts in Idaho and Upstate NY, along with various others associated with IANA. Mohammed Abdel-Rahman then provided information that led authorities to the home of the bacteriologist that had harbored KSM. Anthrax spray drying documents were found, both on a computer and in hard copy.

One report indicates that authorities, with the help of American communications experts, traced an email that Mohammed Abdel-Rahman had sent to an email associated with the home of bacteriologist Qadoos in Rawalpindi. Yet another report says that some unidentified Egyptian collected a $27 million reward for informing on KSM and then relocated first to Great Britain and then to the US. (Perhaps this is a different Egyptian or perhaps the intelligence officials are seeking to cause turmoil among the blind sheik’s supporters). According to Amnesty, Abdel-Rahman Jr. was “whereabouts unknown” as of 2006. He is not on the list of Gitmo detainees.

In June 2003, a UN report explained that Al-Qaeda has a “WMD Committee,” which according to the report, “is known to have approached a number of Muslim scientists … to assist the terrorist network with the creation and procurement of chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear weapons.” Mohammed Abdel Rahman, a member of the 3-member WMD committee, knew Ali Al-Timimi. Ali Al-Timimi conducted a summer camp at a park in Frederick, Maryland over the years. The kids liked the outdoors and ponds. The FBI searched the park’s ponds more than once claiming that Dr. Hatfill had once suggested that someone could weaponize anthrax and discard the equipment in a pond.

Mohammed Abdel-Rahman is one of the missing prisoners whose absence from Guantanamo leads human rights researchers to believe that the CIA is still operating secret prisons. There is a possibility that he was rendered to Egypt. This is the possiblity I favor. The US has refused to comment on where he is. (He is one of the subjects of the FOIA lawsuit filed by NYU, HRW, etc.)

The very well-informed Pakistani journalist Zahid Hussain says in his book, Frontline Pakistan that KSM was actually captured in February from a house in Quetta — presumably the same one where Abdel-Rahman was captured. Supposedly he had been tracked for four weeks before that. Zahid Hussain says that they did not make his arrest public because they wanted to capture other al-Qaeda members or sympathizers, such as the Qadoos family. This would be consistent with the strident denials by the bacteriologist’s family that KSM was captured at their home. The arrest of KSM’s other nephew, Musaad Aruchi, for example, is supposed to have led them to many others. Aruchi is another of the missing prisoners.

The timing of the raid on Al-Timimi’s house two weeks later certainly suggests that it was connected. They had been engaged in surveillance and “trashing” and interception of targets related to the charity for many months. The investigation — including arrests, searches, and some convictions — apparently did not produce any prosecutable evidence of anyone’s involvement in Amerithrax. The timing of the February 26, 2003 raids, however, perhaps related to what Mohammed Abdel-Rahman and KSM told authorities, for example, about Aafia Siddiqui, who was connected to the blind sheik’s Al Kifah organization. An AUSA has said that Aafia was prepared to participate in an anthrax attack if asked. She opened up a mailbox in Gaithersburg, Maryland as part of operations. She used a fake name. Hey, FBI: now THAT’S solid evidence.

Aafia’s thumb drive reportedly had emails revealing cells, plans, US sympathizers/operatives. One official called it the most significant arrest in the past 5 years. Will the amended indictment in New York name others?

Federal investigators probing the deadly 2001 anthrax attacks recovered
human hair samples from a telltale mailbox in Princeton, N.J.,
but the strands did not match the lead suspect in the case,
according to sources briefed on the probe.

I won't hold my breath waiting for the FBI to release the DNA analysis
that will reveal the regional origin of the hairs they DID FIND.

Especially if they are clearly Middle Eastern/Arabic.

Honestly, I'm NOT anti-FBI.
But I fear that the "head honchos" might just be hoping that enough
citizens (and Senators and Represenatives) might be tired enough
to just rubber-stamp their "conviction" of a dead man.

Bruce Ivins may be as guilty as sin.
But the FBI needs to bring in truly indisputable evidence to
bring me to accept their conclusion of this "closed case".

Thank G-d for Sen. Grassley and his crew.
I'm still a bit in awe that one of his requests for evidence involved
the use of "isotopic discrimination" in order to figure if
Ivins grew up his batch of "Amerithrax" in or around the Ft.
Detrick area or his home.

A fair number of people with bachelors degrees in Chemistry
would have to think hard about why Grassley (or his staff)
was asking this piercing question.

The human hair seems of very marginal relevance (absent a match).
Numerous letters were deposited in the mailbox over time and that week. It seems that it would only be of particular interest if found on the letter, rather than just the box.

Yes, use of the phrase “sole custodian” is outrageous unless they go on to say that 8 samples were identical and 100 people were KNOWN to have access. (And of course an unknown additional number of people).

I’ll explain:

Folks who assumed he drove when he took leave were mistaken — as to get the 9/18 postmark we know that mailing had to be after 5 p.m. That is because mail was picked up after 5 p.m. The FBI in its affidavit notes that the window for mailing was after 5 p.m. on 9/17. Thus, he could not have mailed while on leave during the day.

The human hair seems of very marginal relevance (absent a match).

I agree.
I wish the better brains of the Senate and House would convince
the FBI to conduct some sort of behind-the-scene full-tilt
investigation of all the evidence of the files on the "Amerithrax" case.

Yeah, I know I sound like the b-tchin' 9-11 Widows group.

I just wish the FBI had done this sort of vetting of their case
against Ivins before their public proclamations of "we've got
our man"....oh, and yeah, he's dead and can't challenge our claim.

I'm NOT in Ivins' camp...it's just that I've worked around many
academic types, a few of them that committed suicide.
One over a nutburger concern about nuclear proliferation and
another over depression and a failed marriage.

I'd just like to see more/better evidence so that the possibility that
Ivins killed himself over guilt of being the "Amerithrax"
killer...not just some sort of over-conscientious concern about
his reputation or being relieved of duties.

I know that's may be an unrealistic request.
And I may just have to resign myself that the FBI's claim may be
the best claim of what happened. Even if not totally satisfactory.

The CIA and FBI spent a lot of money on water isotope analysis.

I don’t know more than what the published articles say and would ask only that the FBI explain how the isotope ratio analysis corroborates or undermines their conclusion. If it corroborated it, I would have thought that they would have included it in the October 2007 affidavit.

For different purposes, a year or two ago I tested many dozens brands of water at a local lab — personally collecting them. In my experience, even the major brands (by Coke and Pepsi) are bottled not far (for example, in the same state or an adjacent state). That’s because of the transportation costs. I mentioned this to one of the isotope ratio researchers and heard back from him — but I never heard back from the main researcher, Dr. E, when I posed the question you ask. So I can’t give you what his answer would be.

I ordered water from all over the world. One Mexican water sold by a major company tested high for arsenic (way above legal limits). A recall was done throughout the Northeast for a different contaminant. Here, one would want to know whether any bottled water had high levels of silicon.

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