Who is Syed Athar Abbas?

Who is Syed Athar Abbas?
And what was he doing with a $100,000 "fine particulate mixer" last summer?
by David Tell
07/17/2002 10:00:00 AM

BACK IN APRIL, having marinated myself in a decade's worth of published microbiology research and whatnot, I wrote a longish story for the Standard expressing near total bewilderment about the FBI's investigation of last fall's anthrax terrorism. Specifically, I couldn't understand why the Bureau seemed so strongly inclined to the view that its suspect was a lone American scientist--and so little inclined to take seriously the possibility that those mail-borne murders might somehow have been connected with the hijackings of September 11.

Well, three months have gone by now, and even though solid evidence seems ever more elusive the FBI says it still prefers the domestic terrorism scenario--far and away--over any and all competitors. And while I still have (all) my doubts, I feel obliged to note that the trend of opinion in the community of outside anthrax investigation kibbitzers is running hard against me.

Barbara Hatch Rosenberg of the Federation of American Scientists, the influential conspiracy theorist whom I cuffed around sarcastically in my April piece, has grown increasingly confident--and precise and personal--in her speculations about "the" American perpetrator. Other such internet-based anthrax sleuths have gone further, fingering Rosenberg's current top suspect by name: He is a former staff scientist at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Ft. Detrick, Maryland, one Dr. Steven Hatfill. Indeed, so appealing is the idea of Hatfill's guilt, apparently, that no less an eminence than Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times has twice published columns (here and here) describing him in exhaustive detail--thinly disguised as "Mr. Z"--and wondering aloud why the FBI hasn't long since busted the guy.

Seems to me the Times's libel attorneys must be mighty relieved that Kristof has chickened out with that "Mr. Z" business. Seems to me the case against Hatfill is based entirely (and torturously) on the circumstantial overlap of his biography with an arbitrary suspect profile. Seems to me that if the Bureau does wind up running him in--they've already searched his apartment while tipped off news crews from local Frederick, Maryland TV stations hovered overhead in helicopters--we could well have another Richard Jewell situation on our hands. Seems to me that the anthrax conspiracy junkies are excited by Hatfill for the same perfectly understandable but not especially persuasive reason that they are unexcited by any number of other possible culprits: Human nature makes us want to bend and improve reality the better to fit our preconceptions.

Me, though, I like to think I don't have any preconceptions about the anthrax case. Could be the bad guy was an American, I figure. On the other hand, could be someone from, say . . . Pakistan.

Speaking of which--and trusting that the discussion will not spoil my status as a down-the-line anthrax-case agnostic--let me here introduce you to a Pakistani gentleman named Syed Athar Abbas.

The Newark, New Jersey office of local U.S. Attorney Christopher J. Christie has kindly provided me a fax copy of the April 23, 2002 plea agreement--signed by Mr. Abbas on June 10--according to which said Pakistani gentleman now waives his right to prosecution by indictment and agrees, instead, to acknowledge guilt in connection with a one-count felony "information" alleging his participation in an elaborate check-kiting scheme. Abbas, it appears, "from on or about June 7, 2001, through on or about July 10, 2001," defrauded two banks, a Wells Fargo branch in Woodland Hills, California and a Fleet Bank branch in Fort Lee, New Jersey, of slightly more than $100,000--by manipulating three checking accounts he'd opened for a bogus Fort Lee business alternately known as "Dot Com Computer" and "Cards.Com."

None of which by itself makes Abbas particularly noteworthy or ties him, even inferentially, to the anthrax letters or any other form of terrorism. True, it turns out that the FBI, pursuing some thus far undisclosed lead, originally went looking for Abbas--in the first few days after September 11--at his presumed address on the top floor of a commercial building in Fort Lee. And Fort Lee is thought to have been home at some point to Nawaq and Salem Alhamzi, both of whom helped fly American Airlines Flight 77 into the side of the Pentagon. And the FBI could not locate Abbas at first because, so says his former landlord, the man had suddenly abandoned his Fort Lee lease more than a month before--and had disappeared without a trace.

But Abbas wasn't really on the lam, reports his court-appointed lawyer; he'd merely flown home to Pakistan to care for his dying father. And in (nearly) every other respect, Abbas is indistinguishable from hundreds of other Middle Eastern immigrants swept up--in Fort Lee and other such communities--by the FBI's post-9/11 dragnet. Most have been questioned and released. A few dozen of them have been lengthily detained, pending deportation, for minor immigration violations. And a handful, like Abbas, have been subject to other criminal charges, like bank fraud, that carry no explicit whiff of terrorism. Syed Athar Abbas is not that big a deal, you would think. In fact, Syed Athar Abbas is someone you and I would otherwise never have heard of, because so far as I can tell, in the entire world of internet journalism--and legitimate journalism, too--no one has ever before so much as mentioned his name . . .

Except for a single reporter named Rocco Parascandola, who covers law enforcement and the courts for Newsday in New York. Only Rocco Parascandola--in two short dispatches for his paper, one this past December 27 and one just this week, on Monday--has noticed something interesting about Mr. Abbas. Rocco Parascandola has noticed, because his "law enforcement sources" have told him as much, that when the FBI first sought to interview Abbas back in September, they did not discover that he was a run-of-the-mill check-kiting scam artist who nevertheless loved his father like every good boy should. No, what the FBI discovered, instead, was that Syed Athar Abbas was an abruptly vanished fugitive who, using an alias, had recently "arranged to pay $100,000 in cash"--roughly the amount he'd stolen from Wells Fargo and Fleet--for the purchase and shipment of a "fine-food particulate mixer," a "sophisticated machine used commercially" to do various things you wouldn't expect an outfit called "Computers Dot Com" to do. Like "mix chemicals," for example.

Mr. Parascandola reports that it's been established Abbas did take possession of this machine at the "Computers Dot Com" offices in Fort Lee last summer, but had the thing "immediately transported elsewhere" before taking off himself for Pakistan. Federal investigators, Parascandola adds, "have not been able to locate the industrial food mixer" in question, which problem continues to be of some "concern." All the more so because, despite his guilty plea and promise of restitution to the banks he bilked, Abbas has "refused to cooperate with investigators trying to find out more about his accomplices or the mixer."

The $100,000 particulate mixer Parascandola describes, incidentally, is the exact same technology commonly employed by major food and pharmaceutical manufacturers to process fluid-form organic and inorganic compounds into powder: first to dry those compounds; next to grind the resulting mixture into tiny specks of dust, as small as a single micron in diameter; then to coat those dust specks with a chemical additive, if necessary, to maximize their motility or "floatiness"; and finally to aerate the stuff for end-use packaging. In other words, this is how you'd put Aunt Jemima pancake mix in its box. Or place concentrations of individual anthrax spores into letters addressed to Senators Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy.

Again, mind you, I know of no hard evidence to suggest that Syed Athar Abbas is "the" anthrax terrorist--or any kind of anthrax terrorist, for that matter. My only point is this: Nicholas Kristof and the rest of them have no hard evidence that poor Steven "Mr. Z" Hatfill is "the" anthrax terrorist, either, and yet they're all but calling him guilty anyway. Why? Mostly because he fits their preexisting suspect profile, that's why: Hatfill is a native-born American citizen with a scientific background in toxic organisms. Were Hatfill instead a Pakistani immigrant who'd recently completed a suspicious purchase of the expensive machinery necessary to weaponize toxic organisms, well . . . how much you want to bet he'd have gone completely ignored? The way Mr. Abbas has been ignored?

"Ping."

Ping, indeed. This could be several sizes bigger than big.

This raises a question, though. Obviously, Rocco Parascandola, the Newsday reporter, is no dummy and has figured out the significance of the food mixer and its possible connection to the anthrax attacks.

Why is it, then, that he has not been set loose on what might be the "Story of the Decade"?

Do his editors not understand the significance? Are they really that dense? Or are his editors so committed to peddling the Barbara Hatch Rosenberg claptrap that they don't want to see her hoax crumble? And, if so, why? Are they really that deep in denial? Or, in the interests of national security, are the editors themselves in on the disinformation scam?

Would you not love to hear from Mr. Parascandola himself?

Excellent questions. You'd think the "mainstream press" would be all over this. Or at the very least some bloggers.

Another good question is where did Abbas get the initial anthrax. Did he grow it? Or maybe he got from another country like, say, Iraq.

Interesting ...

Perhaps they tested for anthrax the spot where the machines were stored and found none, end of story. Or is it? Very mysterious.

Here's a bit for you from elsewhere:

"Nawaf Alhamzi and Salem Alhamzi _ who were on the Pentagon attack plane _ had Fort Lee, N.J., and Wayne, N.J., addresses....

the press doesn't report it, and is susceptible to Babs because they are not objective. they want this to be a right-wing white male story. It relieves their guilt.

From the July 15 Newsday story linked above:

".....Syed Athar Abbas, using the alias Arthur Abbas, and an apparent front company, Cards.com, rented the top floor of the two-story building on Main Street in Fort Lee, N.J., in June 2001, according to law enforcement sources and the building's landlord. Authorities had hoped Abbas would cooperate with them in their search for the food mixer and identify others seen with him in the office building. He did not. ..."

Not cooperating, huh? Well, that's how they're trained. Guess he'll be deported and the "case closed" unless some outraged govt. man leaks some info.

"Not cooperating, huh? Well, that's how they're trained."

One flaw in the ointment, though. If Abbas has any connection to the anthrax attack, why did he return to the U.S.?

From the Newsday story...

"Yauch said that upon learning that a warrant had been issued for his arrest, Abbas flew to Los Angeles International Airport, where he was arrested in late December, and was returned to New Jersey, where federal prosecutors charged him in a check-kiting scheme."

It is conceivable, of course, that the lawyer is just putting the best face on things. Perhaps, Abbas hadn't actually heard of the FBI's visit to his abandoned premises. And he may have been unaware that a warrant had been issued.

But if he was involved in the anthrax attack, why return to the USA at all? Unless the plan was tightly compartmentalized and his assignment was a.) to scam $100 grand and b.) buy the equipment, then c.) turn it over to somebody else for purposes unknown...

Conceivably, if Abbas was simply a front man and, thus, unaware of his involvement in the anthrax attack, and was also unaware of the FBI's visit and the warrant, he might have felt bulletproof.

Given that he's apparently stonewalling about his confederates and the disposition of the equipment, that's the only reasonable explanation...

Interesting idea. I remember reading about the strange noises coming from the hijackers' apartment, but that's the most detailed description I've seen of the sound.

I'm a little skeptical about this only because it would seem to make much more sense to aerosolize the anthrax overseas and ship the powder here. Admittedly, though, there's a lot we don't know about the full circumstances here. By we, I mean the public. The administration and FBI director Mueller know, I don't doubt, but they just don't think now is the time to let us in on it.

I have long believed the anthrax was aerosolized overseas and brought here. I bring up the possibility only because the reports of late-night noises and late night swims have nagged at me since I first heard about them. The major argument against a connection is the lack of residual particulate contamination in the apartment. It seems unlikely amateurs would have so successfully contained everything.

Perhaps there was a corollary operation? One that was intended to be based out of the Fort Lee office building, but for unexpected reasons, got relocated. We do know, from this Parascandola article, that Abbas rented the entire top floor of a commercial building in June. He obviously didn't need that kind of space to kite checks. Though the article does not specify dates, we can deduce from context that he took delivery of the machine in mid to late July. Shortly thereafter, late July to early August, Abbas abandoned the lease.

Atta was making inquiries about crop dusters just about that time. But with all the time they'd had to plan, this seems awfully late to start thinking about it--unless it were "back to the drawing board" response to something that had gone awry, say, in Minneapolis when Moussoui was arrested?

I have long believed the anthrax was aerosolized overseas and brought here.

Yes, and probably the envelopes were filled overseas as well.
But I have long speculated that some extra lower-grade anthrax was provided
to the hijackers to play around with
so that they wouldn't be tempted to open the envelopes
and use the high-grade stuff in some other way.

"I'm a little skeptical about this only because it would seem to make much more sense to aerosolize the anthrax overseas and ship the powder here."

Agreed. But the check-kiting was apparently done specifically for the purpose of purchasing this particular machine.

Consequently, it had to serve some valuable and, evidently, nefarious purpose. One that had nothing to do with Aunt Jemima pancake mix, or anything else that was innocent.

It may have had nothing to do with the first anthrax attack. But how about the second...???

Walied Sammarai's web page lists the following research:

Research Interests: Adaptive evolution under adverse conditions in Bacillus subtilis Differential response of Bacillus subtilis ribosomal RNA promoters to nutritional stress Publications and Presentations: 1. J.H. Razeq, K. Abu-Lawi, W. Samarri, C. Gullans, and M.F. Sierra. Evaluation of Bactec MYCO/F bottle for the detection of mycobacteria in the blood in the Bactec 9240. ASM annual meeting. Miami Beach, FL, May 1998 2. Michal Grop, E. Eizenman, G. Glaser, W. Samarrai and R. Rudner, A relA (s) suppressor mutant allele of Bacillus subtilis which maps to relA and responds only to carbon limitation.. Gene, 140 (1994). 3. Walied Samarrai and R. Rudenr, Heterogeneity in expression of ribosomal RNA operons and stringent response in B. subtilis, , Department of Biological science, Hunter College, NY, NY. Presented in Wind River conference on prokaryotic biology, Colorado, ASM annual meeting 5-9, 1998.

Samarrai received his Ph.D. from CUNY in Biological Sciences in 1996. We don't know if this is the same person as the Waly Samar mentioned elsewhere, but what we know seems to be consistent. Wasn't Samar said to be a graduate student at Hunter College at the time leading up to the first WTC bombing? Samarrai received his master's degree from CUNY in 1993, so he would have been a graduate student at the time. (He had received his bachelor's degree in 1989.)

Would anybody care to summarize, for a non-specialist, the nature of this research?

Bacillus subtilis, on which he has conducted research, is closely related to Bacillus anthracis, the causative agent for anthrax.

According to this page of research done at Porton Down, "out of the 4107 B. subtilis genes, 2496 are close matches for B. anthracis genes."

Here's a PowerPoint slide describing research funded by Lawrence Livermore on the use of "mass spectrometry (MS) to develop rapid, real-time, and facile methods for remote detection of biological warfare agents in the atmosphere. To facilitate these aims, studies are conducted using simulants of Bacillus anthracis"; the simulants used were B. subtilis, B. subtilis var niger, B. cereus, and B. thuringiensis.

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