Hmmm. I see what he means.
It should be investigated to see whether the same person/group wrote both letters.
Somebody please phone the FBI and wake them up.
Ping
It depends upon what you mean by "tonal" similarities.
It appears that someone once again sent some letters to the media which he wants to look like letters from al Qaeda. That's probably happened a thousand times in the past 6 years.
I put a lengthy analysis of the Goldman Sachs letters on my web site this morning. Here's the link: www.anthraxinvestigation.com
The Goldman Sachs letters remind me of the pipe bomber back in 2002 who was planting pipe bombs in mail boxes around the Mid-West. He planted them in places that made no sense, until you marked them on a map and connected the dots. He was drawing a "happy face" across the map. Link: CLICK HERE.
The guy who sent the Goldman Sachs letters appears to be writing something on a map of the U.S. by sending letters to newspapers in odd ball places like Corpus Christi, Fort Wayne, Peoria, Bayonne, Seattle, etc.
Are the Goldman Sachs and Anthrax Letters Linked ?
doubtful...........why would the cia threaten GS?
Statistically, almost all threat letters are hoaxes. Presently, there seems to be nothing specific about this threat that takes it outside this general rule. (Though of course they should vigorously investigate the matter and not wait for Ed to map out the bellybutton to the SpongeBob figure Ed may end up imagine him to be drawing).
As for mailed anthrax, Dr. Stephen Morse, Director of the Center for Public Health Preparedness at Columbia University said on an interview on Fox News on October 12, 2001 about the threat of mailed anthrax:
“It’s possible to do it, but in fact, it’s not generally a very effective way to give anybody anthrax. On the whole, people are pretty resistant to anthrax, and it’s not easy to catch anthrax, and it’s very hard to make anthrax in a form that when you put it in an envelope, it could be inhaled and infect someone. “
It is important, however, to learn from history in considering modus operandi. The key is to choose from the relevant history — and for that, one needs to be steeped in all the history that might turn out to be relevant. For example, a memo seized in the 1995 arrest proposed flying an explosive laden plane into CIA headquarters. That memo was shared with the FBI and CIA. Anyone reading the Washington Post in the mid-1990s read about the plan to fly a plane into CIA headquarters over their morning coffee. The earlier plot to fly an airliner into the Eiffel tower by some Algerians connected to Bin Laden was also notable. Intelligence analysts all knew this. Condi Rice should have known this. A December 1998 Presidential Daily Brief warned Clinton of a planned hijacking to free the blind sheik abdel Rahman and a detained Saudi Sheik and possibly other attacks. It should not have taken such a great leap in imagination to realize that an attack involving use of planes may have involved KSM’s alternative plan in BOJINKA of flying a plane into a building. Similarly, it’s important that as a country we learn from our mistakes and not pay short shrift to the evidence on the issue of modus operandi relating to Zawahiri’s planned use of anthrax.
Would the militant islamists resort to an attack that merely involved use of mailed letters? Would they provide a warning?
Fall 2001 was not the first time the Egyptian islamists sent letter bombs to newspaper offices in connection with an attack on the World Trade Center. If EIJ is not responsible, someone with access to intelligence information and knowledgeable about their modus operandi was doing a damn good job at framing them.
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 post mark in 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. There was part of a long-running disagreement with Saif Adel (Makawwi) and Ayman, however. As Cairo Attorney Al-Zayyat has explained, 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 shout 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. 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).
On January 7, 1997 Col Muhammad Makkawi purporting to be speaking for the Egyptian Vanguards of Islamic Conquest denied responsibility for sending the letter bombs. He 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.” Makkawi 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, Makkawi added “I am surprised that we in particular, and not other parties [Egyptian Islamic Group], should be accused of such an operation.”
But then someone else credited with being the Vanguards official spokesman denounced Makkawi’s authority to speak for the group, referring to the January 5th statement it had made denying responsibility. This other claimed 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 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 — just as, say NBC and CBS. 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.
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 naturalised American, from Silicon Valley in a confession detailed in a state security document from Egypt’s defense ministry 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.
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. For its part, al Hayat reporters, editor and owner 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 claimed that said 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. Tenet in his May 2007 book included Saif Adel as among “al-Qa’da’s leadership to the group’s highly compartmentalized chemical, biological, and nuclear networks.”
In September 2006, in a Sahab Media production called “Knowledge is for acting,” there is a clip in which Al Quds editor Atwan refers to his visit with OBL in 1996 (see his 2006 book The Secret History of al Qaeda) and he says that Bin Laden was planning to attack America “and America prisons in particular.” That was an apparent reference to the Al Hayat letter bombs sent to newspapers and prisons in January 1997. There were recurrent references to Abdel-Rahman in the tape.
Here are brief excerpts from the new lengthy investigative piece today by Susan Schmidt of the Washington Post about AQ’s biochem program and a US-based operative.
On the trail of an ‘enemy combatant’
Details emerge on Marri’s alleged role in ‘second wave’ of al-Qaeda attacks
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19859636/
Use of poisons
U.S. intelligence officials believe that Marri trained for two years in Afghanistan, among other things receiving instruction in the use of poisons and toxins at the Derunta camp near Jalalabad, sources said. He is believed to have trained under Abu Khabab al-Masri, an Egyptian specialist in chemical and biological weapons who was killed ...
One of those acquaintances, a former Qatari government official, told The Washington Post that Marri came home with CDs of al-Qaeda training lectures and propaganda, as well as a phony California driver’s license.
***
U.S. authorities allege that Marri had gone to the United Arab Emirates in August 2001 to get more than $13,000 in cash from Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi, the alleged paymaster for the Sept. 11 plotters.
***
The Islamic Assembly of North America, an organization that the government accused of creating Web sites to promote violent jihad, contributed $10,000 to the mosque, according to documents filed in federal court in a 2003 terrorism case. Several members of the Macomb mosque’s board had dealings with the group, those records show.
***
Marri had been calling other numbers, in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, according to the complaint. Intelligence and law enforcement sources say he was calling senior al-Qaeda operatives.
The government’s interest in Marri was soon heightened further. In mid-November 2001, al-Qaeda’s senior military commander, Muhammad Atef, was killed in a U.S. rocket attack on an Afghanistan safe house. The CIA discovered a wealth of information among his possessions and on his computer.
“When he was killed, we found out there was a huge al-Qaeda interest in chemical and biological weapons,” said an intelligence source knowledgeable about the investigations of both Atef and Marri. That prompted “a very energetic effort to identify people doing chem-bio.” Materials recovered from Atef’s safe house, the source said, revealed that Marri might be one of them. He and Atef had “shared contacts,” the source said.
***
The feeling was he was engaged in operational research, identifying targets and materials,” the intelligence source said. “We think al-Marri was here to carry out attacks, as part of a second or third wave.
Here are a few paragraphs from the article:
A new letter purportedly written by the author of terrorist threats against Goldman Sachs claims the whole thing was a hoax "conceived by three misguided teenagers."
The four-page letter, hand-printed in red ink on lined paper just like the original batch of 40 letters mailed to media outlets around the country in June, was sent to a Daily News reporter last month and immediately turned over to federal investigators.
An FBI spokesman said yesterday that the new letter is still undergoing analysis at the agency's lab in Quantico, Va., but it appeared to contain similarities to the original threats.
"The investigators believe the latest letter may have been written by the same person, but they're not convinced the underlying story in the letter is the truth," said spokesman James Margolin. The story revealed in the latest missive is nearly as bizarre as the warning sent out in the original letters.