Mohammed Junaid Babar, a jihadi turned informant from Queens, has explained that the 7/7 bombmaking flat provided by the biochemist, was also used to store and ship things to al-Hadi, Ayman Zawahiri’s chief aide.
Babar testified in the 2006 trial against the London bombers. He is cooperating and by reason of cooperation of the Brits on this issue with the US, will be available to testify in an Amerithrax prosecution. He studied pharmacy at St. John’s University in New York but dropped out and left for Pakistan sometime after 9/11.
To make it even sweeter, al-Hadi has now been captured and is being held incommunicado, after eventually having been moved to Guantanamo. It was al-Hadi, Ayman’s chief aide, who was calling the shots on 7/7.
So basically, the CIA and FBI have long kicked ass in Amerithrax but just couldn’t share. And we wouldn’t have wanted them to if it led to such successes as al-Hadi’s capture etc.
The media is in the job of reporting news, not speculation (or even for the most part, analysis) and so they are not to blame for not reporting any of this.
Here is a Wikipedia entry of the lawyer for the biochemist (formerly from UNC ) who is expert on functionalized polymers (encapsulation). (For a discussion of encapsulation, see Katie Crockett’s lucid PhD thesis at GMU supervised by Ken Alibek (with an assist from Bill Patrick) discussing the method of weaponizing the anthrax.
So while TrebleRebel was right to point to the importance of AFIP’s detection of silica to the true crime analysis, and the tantalizing fact that it then reportedly (by some) could not be seen, Dr. Alibek’s student now has quite lucidly explained why the spores might have been encapsulated using silica in the growth medium. This is actually, in part, why the CIA and FBI have worked so furiously on isotope ratio analysis relating to growth media.
Ed’s explanation, while an earnest and good faith effort, can be filed in the circular file now that we have the more current and authoritative summary from Katie (who got input from Ken and Bill P).
But thank you both, TrebleRebel and Ed for continuing to focus on this important issue of the technical forensics.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mamdouh_Ismail