Who is Syed Athar Abbas?

Weekly Standard ^ | 07/17/2002 10:00:00 AM | David Tell

[Shermy]

I was thinking about the "Hunter College" reference in a scientific paper to the hyperlinked NYUTC prof's web site listing his educational history - all at NYUTC.

[okie01]

"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?

[WhiteKnuckles]

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 ...

[Shermy]

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.

[Shermy]

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.

[denydenydeny]

I'm pretty certain that the Wayne and Fort Lee addresses for those guys were Mailboxes Etc. locations. The only documented location that they had in NJ was at 486 Main Street in Paterson, along with the three other Flight 77 hijackers.

All you need to purchase plane tickets from Travelocity, Comeux said, is a valid credit card, an e-mail address, and a mail location that accepts Fed Express. The latter criteria would include a Mailboxes, Etc., and as CNN previously reported, Alhazmi had boxes at franchises in Wayne, New Jersey, and Fort Lee, New Jersey.

[okie01]

"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...

[The Great Satan]

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.

[Eroteme]

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?

[Nogbad]

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.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the heads up!

[aculeus]

BTTT.

[okie01]

"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...???

[Kermit]

" If Abbas has any connection to the anthrax attack, why did he return to the U.S.?"

Once they've seen Patterson, New Jersey ...

[Mitchell]

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?

[flamefront]

I'll summarize - so far as we know, he is into bacteria not virus's.

[flamefront]

Or better, no research on spore form of anthrax either.

[Mitchell]

he is into bacteria not virus's

Yes, so much is clear.

[Mitchell]

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.

See also this page on the use of B. subtilis in tests of B. anthracis decontamination.

[flamefront]

Excellent digging. OK, you are on to something with subtilis. But isn't it the 'milling' operation that is so critical to the use of anthrax spores as a dispersible weapon like the ones used? And that milling operation both leaves a signature of its methods and is very guarded info?