Interestingly, when I got home from doing errands a few minutes ago, I found a very nice email in my inbox from one of the authors of the Aerosol Science article. I haven't yet gotten permssion to quote him or identify him, but he tells me that there is no agreement between the authors of the article on what causes the silica to stick to the spores.
But don't let that dilute your absolute certainty.
Dr. Rebel, let me try to summarize in a different way. The key in coating a chicken breast with bread crumbs is whole milk. Don’t use skim. Ali Al-Timimi had Ken’s recipes available to him if his security was no better that Dr. Patrick’s. It all was quite ridiculous for Ken even to be telling author Preston (you quote above) the Alibekov formula. We shouldn’t now fault him for not more clearly explaining things to Ed in the December 2004 conversation.
Ayman Zawahiri accomplished the attack on the US “structure” he intended. With the planes, Al Qaeda struck the US trade dominance (World Trade Center) and its military might (Pentagon). With the anthrax, some US-based supporter(s) of the goals of Zawahiri rounded out the field that they imagine provides support to Israel — the legislative branch and media. Analogous letter bombs were sent in connection with the earlier attack on the World Trade Center and the imprisonment of the Blind Sheikh and militant islamists responsible for that attack and a related plot. Thus, relying on the postal service to send its deadly missives in connection with an earlier attack of the World Trade Center is not only Al Qaeda’s modus operandi, it is its signature.
For Ed to argue that Ayman would only use a “big bang” is to be totally uninformed that targeted assassination is EIJ’s modus operandi.
Ayman’s plan established by the documentary evidence seized in Afghanistan was to use the cover of charities and universities. When you have the choice between relying on a Brian Ross report, Ed, and the documentary evidence, always go with the documentary evidence.
Al Qaeda’s Mohammed Abdel-Rahman had fellow IANA speaker Ali Al-Timimi available to recruit. A December 1998 PDB had said that Mohammed Islambouli was going to send someone to make contact with people in the US to carry out attacks. In mid-2000, KSM and Islambouli apparently eventually sent bio-chem operative from Saudi Arabia, where his family had moved from Doha, Qatar. Al-Marri had been with both KSM and Islambouli. After Al-Marri was done casing New York City targets with UK operative Dhiren Barot, he had his computer sent from Macomb, Illinois to Washington. In the summer of 2001 went to UAE to receive $13,000 from Al-Hawsawi whose laptop had the spraydrying documents. Upon returning to the United States from Pakistan the next year on September 10, 2001, Al-Marri maintained contact with Al-Hawsawi. Al-Hawsawi also handled financial logistics relating to the 9/11 hijackers. Like Tenet said, anthrax planning was in parallel with the 9/11 planes operation. To close the Amerithrax case, the key question: where in Washington did Al-Marri have his computer sent?
In the Washington, D.C. area, Taliban supporter Ali Al-Timimi worked in the same building as famed Russian bioweaponeer Ken Alibek and former USAMRIID Deputy Commander and Acting Commander Charles Bailey, who had co-invented a process using hydrophobic silica to lead to greater concentration of a biological agent. “Encapsulation” was the reason for the detection of silica. Dr. Bailey has been a prolific Ames anthrax strain researcher. Dr. Alibek and Dr. Bailey had multimillion dollar grants from DARPA funding a contract with USAMRIID with Delta Ames supplied by NIH. NSA intercepts showed that Ali Al-Timimi was working with Bin Laden’s sheik al-Hawali, who had been the subject of Bin Laden’s 1996 Declaration of War and his 1998 claim of responsibility for the embassy bombings. Timimi has been sentenced to life plus 70 years before his conviction was reversed and remanded. Bilal Philips had been Ali’s mentor and the father of Jafar the Pilot had been Bilal Philips’ mentor. Ali Al-Timimi shared a fax machine with famed Russian anthrax bioweaponeer Ken Alibek and former USAMRIID deputy commander Charles Bailey, who is listed as an author on various articles reporting biodefense research using virulent Ames strain of anthrax.
Dr. Bailey had worked with the Defense Intelligence Agency (”DIA”) for years on threat assessment of biological weapons. Dr. Alibek had consulted for Battelle, world renown for its expertise on anthrax aerosols. Dr. Alibek and Dr. Bailey had co-authored the patent filed in mid-March 2001 on concentrating biological agents using silica in the growth medium that was still confidential as of Fall 2001. Ed’s theory that a surfactant was used prior to drying may come up along on the outside and overtake all the pictures of asperities and van der waals forces that Dr. Rebel cares to post.
Although Ed never mentions it, CIA Director Tenet, in a May 2007 book, notes that the CIA was startled to learn that the anthrax planning had been done in parallel with the 9/11 planning. Indeed, it was the laptop of Hawsawi, who was KSM’s assistant who sent and received money from the hijackers, that had the anthrax spraydrying documents on it. In fact, KSM was not really captured on March 1, 2003, when the laptop was seized, as the Pakistanis claim. He apparently instead was captured on or about February 13, 2001 at the time the blind sheik’s son was grabbed, based on a report Zahid Hussain sourced to a police official. Intelligence officials just wanted the two weeks to get leads on those planning attacks. The family members of the bacteriologist who owned the home where Hawsawi and the laptop were taken have always stridently claimed that KSM was not captured there. Two weeks later authorities raided Al-Timimi along with drying and processing experts. In June 2003, a UN report explained that Al-Qaeda “WMD Committee” — Mohammed Abdel-Rahman was one of its three members — “is known to have approached a number of Muslim scientists to assist the terrorist network with the creation and procurement of chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear weapons.” Al-Timimi apparently, the FBI suspects, was one such scientist.
Information permitting a resolution of the Amerithrax matter — the identity of the processor(s) and mailer — likely will come from the numerous individuals, now arrested, who may have played a role or known something. It likely will stem from those with a personal knowledge of Al Qaeda, and not those with an ideological or political axe to grind, whether against Iraq or militant islamists, in favor of establishing a Palestinian state, or against the US biodefense establishment or current federal Administration. The perps likely at some point have expressed upset at the detention of the Blind Sheik or been personally affected by the detention of friends or family.
Although the analysis by the Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR) in Rockville, Md. did not pinpoint the exact origin of the Florida isolate, the study showed how whole-genome sequencing technology and computational methods can be a powerful approach for analyzing anthrax and other bacterial outbreaks. BHR has always underestimated the usefulness of the genetic line of inquiry at narrowing the source of the anthrax. Similarly, while the anthrax perpetrator(s) may never be caught, the Amerithrax investigation was hard fought by investigators who realized that the next 9/11 might be at issue. As they heard Ayman Zawahiri’s recurring threats of attack, the Amerithrax investigators likely remained haunted by coincidences that they tirelessly pursued while they left no stone unturned. Amerithrax investigators emphasize that there is no cover-up — no conspiracy. The investigators at least once were under intense pressure to solve the case. Giving the government the benefit of the doubt, and putting aside whether anyone will be prosecuted criminally for leaks, the information that was withheld was presumably for reasons of national security and safeguarding the integrity of the confidential criminal investigation.
In 2003, anthrax lab tech Yazid Sufaat’s assistants were captured. “Extremely virulent” anthrax was found in Afghanistan after Hambali was harshly interrogated in Jordan. Ron Suskind in One Percent Solution reports that it was unweaponized but authorities knew it could be readily weaponized and had predated 9/11. It was highly concentrated. After these and other developments, conspicuous surveillance was called off on US scientist Dr. Steve Hatfill in late 2003. In the Summer 2006, the “911 Imam” Awlaki (Aulaqi) from Falls Church, Virginia was arrested in Yemen and held for 18 months. Awlaki met both in San Diego and in Falls Church with hijacker Nawaf who had been at the planning meeting in January 2000 at the condo of anthrax lab director Yazid Sufaat. 911 planner Ramzi Bin-al-Shibh had the telephone number of Awlaki’s mosque. CIA Director Tenet in his 2007 book says authorities were startled to find that the anthrax planning had been done in parallel with the 9/11 planning and that Ramzi Bin-al-Shibh had a CBRN role. (So, no, TrebleRebel, don’t be surprised that the “Jenny” used by Ramzi would be used.) The Falls Church “911 Iman” Awlaki would speak alongside fellow Falls Church imam Ali Al-Timimi and Bilal Philips about the signs of the coming day of judgment — for example, in August 2001, he spoke with Ali Al-Timimi in London along with unindicted WTC 1993 conspirator Philips.
The anthrax operation was likely led by Mohammed Islambouli, who had been in a cell with KSM in connection with the planned attacks on the US using aircraft and other means. Islambouli’s role and his planned visit to the US in preparation for the attacks was the subject of the December 4, 1998 Presidential Daily Brief by the CIA to President Clinton. If we don’t learn from history, we are doomed to repeat it. The job of journalists, however, is news, not analysis. So journalists understandably need to wait until they are told these things by the government (or in this case, by a defendant’s counsel). Sometimes the government’s interest in the fruits of intelligence activity causes them to forego explaining what is really going on or in seeking a criminal prosecution. For example, the wiretap on Postal employee Sattar’s telephone permitted them to catch the head of the Egyptian Islamic Group in Egypt in October 2000. Similarly, by proceeding in great secrecy in Amerithrax, they have had numerous successes that otherwise would have eluded them. The solution to Amerithrax, however, has been there for all to see — most intelligence is open source. Amerithrax is best understood as a complex web of prosecutions. In the end Amerithrax will be known as a great DOJ/FBI success story.
The prosecution in the Al-Timimi matter only has a matter of days left to provide any discoverable evidence of interception.
I have plently of literature I can cite that shows that untreated silica nanoparticles stick to surfaces (including larger particles) by van der Waals forces. Van der Waals forces are omnipresent. They are weaker than chemical bonds, and that’s why more robust coated spores can be made with a binding agent.
This paper here:
http://web.njit.edu/~dave/Dry-Coating-Flow.pdf
describes the theory of van der Waals forces causing particles to clump as well as being the adhesion source of the silica nanoparticles to the surface of the corn strach particles.
This is identical to the effects of coating anthrax spores with silica as the CDC/Dugway paper studies.
The paper at the above link used many different grades of silica - some with small primamry particles - some larger. Some of the SEM pictures look remarkably similar to the Dugway picture.
I suggest you get the person you are corresponding with to state in plain, clear English that there is no connection whatsover with this work on powder flowability and aerosol behavior of nanoparticle silica coated powders to their work on aerosol studies of nanoparticle silica coated spores.