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In December 2001, as the investigation into the U.S. anthrax attacks was gathering steam, coalition soldiers in Afghanistan uncovered what appeared to be an important clue: a trail of documents chronicling an attempt by al-Qaeda to create its own anthrax weapon. The documents told of a singular mission by a scientist named Abdur Rauf, an obscure, middle-aged Pakistani with alleged al-Qaeda sympathies and an advanced degree in microbiology. Using his membership in a prestigious scientific organization to gain access, Rauf traveled through Europe on a quest, officials say, to obtain both anthrax spores and the equipment needed to turn them...

When Bruce E. Ivins, an Army microbiologist, took a fatal overdose of Tylenol in 2008, the government declared that he had been responsible for the anthrax letter attacks of 2001, which killed five people and set off a nationwide panic, and closed the case. Now, a former senior F.B.I. agent who ran the anthrax investigation for four years says that the bureau gathered “a staggering amount of exculpatory evidence” regarding Dr. Ivins that remains secret. The former agent, Richard L. Lambert, who spent 24 years at the F.B.I., says he believes it is possible that Dr. Ivins was the anthrax...

Chemical terror plot foiled in London Fri November 21, 2003 11:43 PM ET LONDON (Reuters) - An attempt by a London-based terror group to buy half a tonne of toxic chemicals was foiled after the supplier became suspicious and alerted police, the Financial Times has reported.It said the group had attempted to buy 500 kgs (1,102 lb) of the toxin saponin from Amersham Biosciences late last year but the sale was refused after staff became concerned about the size of the order. A spokesman for London's Metropolitan Police told Reuters on Saturday that police were "not prepared to discuss the...

A report by a chemical weapons monitoring groups says that the use of chemical weapons in a small town in Syria being fought over by rebels and ISIS resulted in the death of at least one infant. While the report does not assign blame, it is believed that Islamic State fighters used the weapon. NBC News: A confidential Oct. 29 report by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), a summary of which was shown to Reuters, concluded "with the utmost confidence that at least two people were exposed to sulfur mustard" in the town of Marea,...

BAGHDAD: Top Iraqi officials attended a funeral Wednesday for politician Ahmed Chalabi, a controversial champion of the U.S.-led invasion of his country. Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, President Fuad Masum, parliament speaker Salim al-Juburi and other officials were among the large crowd of mourners at the ceremony held in Baghdad's heavily-fortified Green Zone, where the government is headquartered. Chalabi, the head of parliament's finance committee, died of a heart attack aged 71 the day before. Living in exile as head of the Iraqi National Congress (INC), which opposed Saddam Hussein, Chalabi became a White House favorite for information he provided which...

The nuclear deal with Iran takes effect on Sunday, setting in motion a series of events that will put President Obama’s diplomatic gamble to the test. Iran is months away from putting in place the limits on its nuclear program that would trigger relief from economic sanctions, and an international inspection regime is only just beginning. Still, Sunday’s "Adoption Day" represents a big moment for the Obama administration; having prevented the deal from dying in Congress, Obama officials must now see whether Iran can deliver. “We are moving now to the implementation stage, and it is essential that we will...

Nigergate: the dangerous relations between Democrat Senators and ex spies Here follows an interesting article from the Italian newspaper Il Giornale. I make no comment at all other than ‘read it’. Very soon, under the title “The Rockefeller Connection”, I will post something revealing, something important that until now passed completely under the Radar Screen. Stay tuned .. Nigergate: the dangerous relations between Democrat Senators and ex spies Il GIORNALE 13 November 2005 By Gian Marco Chiocci and Mario Sechi October 9 2002, Rome. Elisabetta Burba, journalist with Panorama magazine, crosses Via Veneto. At the American Embassy someone is waiting...

Venezuela and Bolivia are supplying Iran with uranium for its nuclear program, according to a secret Israeli government report obtained Monday by The Associated Press. The two South American countries are known to have close ties with Iran, but this is the first allegation that they are involved in the development of Iran's nuclear program, considered a strategic threat by Israel.

Cyber warfare has gone nuclear. So says Valerie Plame, the former covert CIA agent who spent her intelligence career working against the spread of weapons of mass destruction. Now she’s taking on a new task: helping government agencies and companies stem the relentless flood of hacker attacks. “There’s a huge impact on national security and intelligence,” says Plame, who this spring became an adviser to cybersecurity startup Global Data Sentinel. “The new normal is going to be more and more of these hacks, whether it’s Target or Home Depot or the Office of Personnel Management or Jennifer Lawrence’s nude photos.”...

WASHINGTON — Americans following this year's presidential campaign would never know it from mainstream media coverage, but the commander in chief we hired four years ago has set the United States on a course for unilateral disarmament. The following people hope you won't notice until after Nov. 6: Vladimir Putin, Liang Guanglie, Kim Jong-un, Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, Sayyed Ali Hosseini Khamenei, Abdul Fattah al-Sisi, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, A.Q. Khan and of course, Barack Obama. The 10 individuals above share a common fascination: nuclear weapons. Vladimir Putin, Russia's modern czar; Liang Guanglie, minister of national defense for...

Islamic State (IS) militants fired mortar rounds containing mustard agent at Kurdish peshmerga fighters in northern Iraq, Kurdish officials say. The Ministry of Peshmerga Affairs said blood samples from about 35 fighters revealed traces of sulphur mustard. It did not say if any of the peshmerga had died as a result of the attack, or how severely they had been wounded. Mustard gas can burn skin and cause severe respiratory problems, and is banned under international law.

PREWAR INTELLIGENCE WASHINGTON, July 30 - A senior leader of Al Qaeda who was captured in Pakistan several months after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks was the main source for intelligence, since discredited, that Iraq had provided training in chemical and biological weapons to members of the organization, according to American intelligence officials. Intelligence officials say the detainee, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, a member of Osama bin Laden's inner circle, recanted the claims sometime last year, but not before they had become the basis of statements by President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and others...

Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi, whose real name was Ali Mohammed al-Fakheri, 46, took his own life in his prison cell, according to the Libyan newspaper Oea. Information gained from the interrogation of al-Libi was cited on several occasions by the Bush administration as justification for the war in Iraq. He told his CIA interrogators that al-Qaeda had sent two men to Iraq to seek training in chemical and biological weapons in December 2000. Classified documents added that the men did not return, so al-Libi did not know whether the training took place, and that, in any case, he was probably "intentionally...

Nuclear annihilation across the globe. This is what a German reporter who successfully embedded with the Islamic State says the terror group is planning. Jurgen Todenhofer released his findings in a book titled “Inside IS - Ten Days in the Islamic State,” reports the UK’s Daily Express. “The terrorists plan on killing several hundred million people. The west is drastically underestimating the power of ISIS. ISIS intends to get its hands on nuclear weapons,” says Todenhofer, calling the group a “nuclear tsunami preparing the largest religious cleansing in history.”

Colin CampbellSeptember 7, 2015 The White House is firing back at former Vice President Dick Cheney. Cheney has long been a fierce critic of President Barack Obama. But in recent days, he has been publicly savaging the administration's Iran nuclear deal with new intensity while promoting his new book. In a seemingly unusual reaction, the White House on Tuesday used its official social-media accounts to promote a video blasting Cheney for his comments. The video stressed that Cheney was a leading proponent of the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. It also noted that the former vice president continued to...

Instead of constantly smacking Israel with criticism, the Obama administration and its European comrades should be praising the Jewish state The entire free world owes Israel an enormous debt of gratitude. Were it not for a prescient strike against a Syrian nuclear reactor in 2007, which foreign media sources credit Israel with carrying out, the fanatics of Islamic State would now be in possession of their own nuclear facility. This revelation came to light thanks to a recent article on the NK News website by former US diplomat Dennis P. Halpin, who highlighted an intriguing tidbit of information that was...

Solomon reports part of concern about the information being unsecured on Clinton’s home server is that it could have been hacked by the North Koreans–who would then know more about U.S. spying capabilities. Solomon reports the information was likely summarized from a secure site and sent in unclassified systems up the chain to Clinton. “One of the most serious potential breaches of national security identified so far by the intelligence community inside Hillary Rodham Clinton’s private emails involves the relaying of classified information concerning the movement of North Korean nuclear assets, which was obtained from spy satellites. “Multiple intelligence sources...

While the US has had a surge in violence over the past several years, its defining feature was the generally chaotic and uncoordinated nature of each such - usually lethal - act. That changed over the weekend when the FBI announced three US citizens - Brian Cannon, 37, Terry Peace, 47, and Cory Williamson, 29, - were sentenced to 12 years in prison for "conspiring to use weapons of mass destruction in attacks against federal government agencies. The defendants planned to attack critical infrastructure while motivating militia groups in other states to rise up and join them in removing...

U.S. intelligence agencies reportedly believe the Islamic State used chemical weapons in Syria on Kurdish forces at least two weeks before the group may have used it in Iraq, U.S. officials said on Friday. The reports are fueling concerns that ISIS has acquired an arsenal of banned chemicals that could escalate fighting in the region. “It could be a pattern,” a senior U.S. official with knowledge of the intelligence told The Wall Street Journal. U.S. agencies have believed that the Islamic State aspired to obtain chemical weapons, such as mustard gas, but officials said it was premature to immediately connect...

The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isil) used mustard agent in its fight against a Kurdish militia in Syria, testing has confirmed. Unnamed US government officials involved in investigating alleged chemical weapon use by Isil in the northeastern Syrian city of Hasakeh confirmed mustard gas had been used, according to the Washington Post and CNN. Mustard gas, used during World War One, can cause blisters, blindness and respiratory damage and is an internationally-banned chemical weapon. Last month, members of a Syrian Kurdish militia, the People's Defence Units or YPG, reported that projectiles fired by Isil's jihadists had released...