[Battle Axe]

It has been explained that it is an Islamic custom to first warn any enemy.....then kill them.

I think it was Manzoor Ijaz that said that first the Muslim must confront an infidel trespassing (say for example) and then if the infidel does not leave or convert to Islam, then it is ok to kill them. America is considered a trespassing infidel because we were on Saudi soil which is considered holy.

[Shermy]

I don't think it was a warning. I think the senders would have seen the first wave as a failure. IIRC there was little news about anthrax before the AMI story, and when the AMI story came out it wasn't linked to a specific message - or even mail. So the person/s sent the second wave to the Senators, expressly stating "anthrax."

[piasa]

Your comment about a woman receiving a package of seeds reminds me of Wadih el Hage.

While he was in the US, El Hage received "packages of seeds" from a female relative in Sudan.

That detail always bothered me, as Sudan and Iraq had a little MD R&D going on during the period bin Laden was based there on his "farm."