Posted on 10/10/2001 4:10:46 PM PDT by annie oakley
The anthrax scare gripping America intensified today as a link emerged between two of Osama bin Laden's hijackers and the building where a man contracted the fatal disease.
Investigators believe that two hijackers had subscriptions to the tabloid newspapers published in the Boca Raton headquarters of American Media Inc, where the British-born picture editor Robert Stevens is believed to have contracted anthrax.
The link would cause massive alarm because it is known that Osama bin Laden's operatives have been trying to obtain chemical and biological weapons. Mohammed Atta, one of the hijack leaders, stayed nearby and tried to hire a cropspraying-plane in the hope of mounting a chemical-attack. Several other suicide hijackers visited a crop-dusting business in Belle Glade, 40 miles away.
A source close to the inquiry said the link is being treated seriously but cautiously. "We're not sure what to make of that yet," he said. "It may mean absolutely nothing."
At a high-level briefing, investigators were told that the anthrax strand taken from Mr Stevens had "certain configurations'' that matched a specific strain on file at a national anthrax repository in Arizona. Mr Stevens, 63, who worked at The Sun, an American magazine, died on Friday from inhalation anthrax, a rare form of infection. Anthrax germs were also found up the nose of a 73-year-old mailroom employee and on a computer keyboard used by Mr Stevens, who had lived in Florida with his wife Maureen for 25 years.
A third woman, a librarian, is undergoing further tests to see if she has been exposed to the spores.
About 850 workers, members of their families and people who visited the offices of American Media, which includes several British citizens, are being given blood tests.
The FBI believes that the killer spores probably arrived by mail or possibly were put in the air conditioning system. The anthrax incubation period is between 12 hours and five days.
One Palm Beach County Health Authority official said: "How the rare anthrax strain was obtained is a frightening mystery."
US health officials said it was "a billion to one chance" that the two men had contracted anthrax naturally, but the FBI has yet to find clear evidence of a crime.
Detectives are looking into two reports of suspicious incidents at the newspaper offices, including a "weird love letter to Jennifer Lopez" with a "soapy, powdery substance" inside delivered last month.
They are also investigating whether the National Enquirer could have been a target after a series of derogatory articles about Bin Laden and Arab terrorism.
Events in Florida have led to police and health authorities being mobilised across an increasingly jittery country. Amid panic buying of masks and antibiotics, even the normally sober International Herald Tribune carried the front page headline Fear of Bioterrorism.
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer tried to allay fears and said: "It's not unusual at times like this for false alarms to go off. Nevertheless, it will be the continuing position of the federal government to investigate, to make all means availableto be helpful." There were scares in Washington, where a man sprayed perfume from a pump action bottle on a subway as he struggled with police.
In Virginia, a man who may have worked in a building owned by AMI was tested for anthrax on Monday after coming to the hospital with flulike symptoms and signs of confusion. Doctors treated him with an antibiotic, rushed tests to health authorities and called the FBI. Tests showed he probably did not have anthrax.
In Covington, Kentucky, an Internal Revenue Service center was shut for several hours and seven workers treated as a precaution after a powder was found in the mail room, police said. An envelope containing the powder was removed for study. In Montreal, the offices of Globe International, office of a company with close ties to American Media, were briefly evacuated because of a suspect letter. Police said they doubted it was dangerous but did not want to take chances.
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