Interrogation: Al Qaeda and Anthrax

Newsweek ^ | 4/8/2004 | Mark Hosenball

[TrebleRebel]

According to documents obtained by NEWSWEEK, Al Qaeda mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed told U.S. investigators after his capture last year that a high-ranking Qaeda lieutenant known as Khallad originally was "selected" to participate in the 9/11 attacks as a "bouncer"--one of the musclemen assigned to corral and subdue passengers on a hijacked plane. Khallad, a one-legged Yemeni also known as Tawfiq bin Attash, attended a January 2000 "summit" meeting in Malaysia at which he allegedly went over plans for 9/11 with two future hijackers, Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi. After the meeting, Almihdhar and Alhazmi traveled to the United States. But Khallad apparently was unable to get a U.S. visa; instead, authorities say, he went on to mastermind the October 2000 suicide attack on the USS Cole in Yemen. He was finally captured in Karachi, Pakistan, a year ago.

According to other reports generated during U.S. interrogations of "Hambali," an Indonesian terrorist leader captured in Thailand last summer, a Malaysian named Yazid Sufaat, who helped organize and host the Kuala Lumpur terror "summit," traveled to Afghanistan in June 2001 for a one-month training course. Hambali claimed that, after training, Sufaat worked with him "supporting" a Qaeda "anthrax program" in the Afghan city of Kandahar. After 9/11, Hambali says, he again met Sufaat and had discussions about "continuing the anthrax program in Indonesia." Though U.S. intelligence officials say there is evidence that Al Qaeda was interested in acquiring chemical, biological and atomic weapons, there is little if any proof that the bin Laden network ever acquired weapons of mass destruction other than poisons like cyanide and ricin. A CIA spokesman had no comment on the interrogations of Mohammed and Hambali.

[TrebleRebel]

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[Peach]

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[jocon307]

"[T]here is little if any proof that the bin Laden network ever acquired weapons of mass destruction other than poisons like cyanide and ricin."

Just cyanide and ricin? Well that's ok then.

[The G Man]

Phew! I agree ... those hardly even count.

[Ranger]

Yazid Sufaat was the microbiologist in Malaysia. His company was Green-something-or-other. He went to school and met his wife in Sacremento (Davis I think). He got the 20th hijacker into the country on a work visa. There were extensive and original research on him posted on FR in 2001 and 2003. I think he even was involved with a centrifuge type device for separating anthrax particles. He was captured in 2001 December I think or was it 2002? Anyway, his wife and father-in-law are muslim radicals and his in-laws have the bucks. Somebody on FR should pull the archived postings of Yazid Sufaat as this is going to be the anthrax connection, if there is in fact one IMHO.

[Ranger]

My recollection is that he also had a company that imported about 5 tons of explosive fertilizer ingredients. The Singapore bomb plots were uncovered but the explosives disappeared and later showed up in Indonesia where there was a partial recovery.

[Rutles4Ever]

They were planning on a guy with ONE LEG to subdue passengers???

[rod1]

Yes I am a toxicologist and RICIN as indented to be used by these guys is a WMD in my mind.
BTW--the RICIN found in London was traced back vis Al Qaida terrosists aided by Saddam to the camp in Northern Iraq. So it all makes perfect sense.

But that's OK nothing to see here. Iraq had no WMD. Increadibly potent toxins meant to kill thousands at a time don't count. and of course Iraq and Al Qaida were never connected in anyway.

The liberal press is so used to mass slanting that even they get lazy and let the thruth slip under masked headlines.

BTW--ricin-induced death is not any prettier than anthrax-associated mortality. and there is no known antidote.

[PsyOp]

They were planning on a guy with ONE LEG to subdue passengers???

Watching too much Monty Python. I'll bet his code name was "black knight".

[jpl]

It's been my belief for some time now that the original 9/11 plan called for the use of five airplanes, not four, and that there were originally more than 19 trained hijackers (possibly even as many as 25).

I'd wager my life savings that the remaining trained hijackers that never actually boarded any planes ended up being diverted for the purpose of handling the anthrax mailings as a desperate effort to avert or delay any counterstrikes.

[Shermy]

Ken Alibek speaking in Kansas City on Monday. Here's an interview:

Threat of anthrax worries author most

[Peach]

Thanks for the ping, Shermy.

[FairOpinion]

Thanks for the ping.

"Isn't that one of the powers of biological weapons, not just to kill but to set off a panic?

Yes. With conventional weapons you have something very spectacular and dramatic. But within minutes or hours it's happened and it's over. If you are alive and uninjured, you know that you have survived. Chemical weapons are the same. But with biological weapons it takes days and days and days and you may not know if you're infected. It causes psychological distress.

You can imagine if the city of New York is attacked. People would stop going to shopping malls, they would try to limit travel, businesses would not be working. People would be too scared to go out. That's one way a biological weapon would continue to attack."

This is exactly why the biological weapons are so dangerous and why the terrorists will use them, if they can.

[PsyOp]

Bio-Chemical Weapons & Saddam: A History.

[PsyOp]

I'm currently reading Alibek's book "Biohazard." I knew a lot of this info and included some of it in my popst on Saddam and WMD's, but he goes into a lot of detail in this book and shows just how fast and loose the Soviets played with deadly germs.

[piasa]

Plot to blow up four embassies revealed on Afghan video: SINGAPORE BOMB CONSPIRACY

<snip>...

Yazid Sufaat, a US-trained chemist alleged to have hosted at least one al-Qaeda activist associated with the September 11 attacks during a visit to Kuala Lumpur, was ordered by Hambali to procure four tonnes of ammonium nitrate. He allegedly made the order through his company, Green Laboratory Medicine, and arranged for it to be stored at Muar, a quaint port town on Malaysia's west coast, according to Malaysian officials. However, Mr Yazid's lawyer, Saiful Izham Ramli denies the Singaporean allegations. "My client has nothing to do with al-Qaeda or any militant group. He was not involved at any level whatsoever in the September 11 attacks or any militant activities," he said.

...</snip> .

[Ranger]

Also if you remember, one of the very first aerial bombing targets in Afghanistan was a UN building the Taliban had occupied that contained an anthrax laboratory. The lab was for studying anthrax in the region but the equipment was all there to make it. So a bomb 'accidentally' landed on the equipment in the warehouse.

[Ranger]

Check out this site.

http://members.bellatlantic.net/~vze43v8m/