Posted on 03/22/2002 11:49:22 PM PST by kattracks
ASHINGTON, March 22 The United States has discovered a laboratory under construction near Kandahar, Afghanistan, where American officials believe Al Qaeda planned to develop biological agents, officials said today.
According to a confidential assessment by the United States Central Command, the laboratory was intended to produce anthrax. The assessment was presented to senior American officials in recent days and is based on documents and equipment found at the site.
No biological agents were found in the laboratory, which was still under construction when it was abandoned. American intelligence officials still believe that Al Qaeda would need assistance from foreign experts or foreign governments to mount an effective program to make weapons of mass destruction.
"There was a lab under construction in the vicinity of Kandahar," an American official said. "It is another example that they had an appetite for developing biological agents."
Throughout the conflict in Afghanistan, American officials have repeatedly asserted that Al Qaeda was trying to acquire weapons of mass destruction. For months, American officials have been scouring former terrorist camps and other sites to determine the status of Al Qaeda's efforts.
There is ample evidence that the Qaeda organization wanted weapons of mass destruction, including biological agents. Osama bin Laden is said to have considered the acquisition of such weapons a religious obligation.
"Documents recovered from Al Qaeda facilities in Afghanistan show that bin Laden was pursuing a sophisticated biological weapons research program," said George J. Tenet, the director of central intelligence. "We also believe that bin Laden was seeking to acquire or develop a nuclear device. Al Qaeda may be pursuing a radioactive dispersal device, which some call a `dirty bomb.' "
But there is still no indication that Al Qaeda ever succeeded in producing biological agents.
In general, Al Qaeda's goal of having an arsenal of unconventional weapons seems to have far outstripped its limited technological capabilities.
According to American officials, more than 60 sites have been investigated and more than 370 samples have been taken. In only five cases were there any apparent indications of possible biological agents and these were only tiny amounts.
Still, American experts are continuing to search Afghanistan for evidence about Al Qaeda's weapons program and to sift through evidence gathered from the sites that have already been discovered.
The latest assessment came this week in a report by the Central Command, which is directing the war in Afghanistan. It noted that in addition to documents found at the site, some unused equipment was also uncovered.
American officials did not describe the evidence in detail but said that it included medical equipment and supplies that would be useful for legitimate research but could also be used to produce biological agents.
Officials also said there was no evidence of pathogens at the Kandahar location. But the evidence, which included documents, indicated that Al Qaeda was interested in producing anthrax. If Al Qaeda had succeeded in producing biological agents in the lab and wanted to put them in missile warheads or bombs, the work would have to have been done at a different site, an American official said.
Officials declined to say whether the information was also based on human intelligence: that is, a former Al Qaeda operative, spy or resident who may have been familiar with the program. But this seemed to be a strong possibility.
An American official said the discovery of the laboratory generally reinforced the prevailing intelligence estimate about Al Qaeda's limited capabilities. Still, the discovery of the laboratory provides additional information about the extent of Al Qaeda's efforts, including the sort of agents it was interested in producing.
Earlier today, there were press reports from London that a biological weapons laboratory had been found in the mountains in the Shah-i-Kot region of Afghanistan near Gardez during the recent United States military operation there.
The reports suggested that this was the reason London had decided to dispatch 1,700 combat troops to Afghanistan.
American officials said, however, that no biological weapons laboratory had been found in that part of Afghanistan. The Central Command said an abandoned factory for making conventional explosives had been found in the area on March 13.
British officials also said that London's decision to send troops was not directly related to Al Qaeda efforts to develop weapons of mass destruction. Rather, they said, the British decided to send the troops so that the Central Command would have more forces to conduct mop up operations in the rugged terrain of Afghanistan.
The British decision, the largest British deployment since the 1991 gulf war, was announced on Monday.
The reference to the laboratory south of Gardez may be a garbled account of the new assessment by the Central Command about the laboratory near Kandahar. It is possible that the assessment was disclosed in London to strengthen the case to the British public for sending British combat troops to Afghanistan.
Really?
There is evidence to the contrary. For example, there was a thread here which described a female Muslim biologist who warned a colleague about active plans to produce bioweapons. As I recall she stated that Muslim women had been routinely smuggling bio-agents into the U.S. in body cavities long prior to 9/11--because they were certain they would not be searched.
And what makes anybody think that Afghanistan is the only place Al-Queda has constructed labs? And what makes anybody think they do not have the support of multiple governments (Libya, Iraq, Iran...) in developing agents?
For that matter, any of the numerous Muslim 'students' in the U.S. could be developing something nasty in a lab in a U.S. university in his "spare time"...
--Boris
I suspect that there are ~100 active cells still in the U.S. I am far more worried about smallpox than anthrax.
And I am seriously worried about a suitcase nuke or dirty bomb.
The U.S. generously pointed out that it has no native source for smallpox vaccine, and was ordering millions of doses from Acambis, a British company. Brilliant.
Were I Osama, I would reduce Acambis to rubble. Heck, just doing that would have almost the impact of releasing smallpox or some other agent in Cleveland.
As to the timing, my feeling is summed up as follows: they are not finished with us yet and we are essentially in denial and not doing the things that could save thousands or millions.
The extant cells might be working to a pre-agreed timetable, or awaiting signals, or waiting for certain 'triggering events' like the first bombs falling on Baghdad...
Who knows how their minds work?...but IMHO it is only a matter of when and where, not if.
--Boris
Very dangerous assumption.
The US is a powerful nation but no longer are our shores out of an enemy's reach. Our apparent source of power is economic, and this economic power is what they hate, far more than any hatred of our military capabilities. They struck at our military, but more important than that their attacks are directed towards purely economic targets like the twin towers and the airline industry. I wouldn't be surprised to see attacks on agribusiness, rather than just on human targets. Disturbing the largest industries in this country and in their subsidiaries worldwide could be approached from many angles.
If someone finds the story, please post it.
March 23, 2002 BIOTERRORISM Report Linking Anthrax and Hijackers Is InvestigatedBy WILLIAM J. BROAD and DAVID JOHNSTON
he two men identified themselves as pilots when they came to the emergency room of Holy Cross Hospital in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., last June. One had an ugly, dark lesion on his leg that he said he developed after bumping into a suitcase two months earlier. Dr. Christos Tsonas thought the injury was curious, but he cleaned it, prescribed an antibiotic for infection and sent the men away with hardly another thought. But after Sept. 11, when federal investigators found the medicine among the possessions of one of the hijackers, Ahmed Alhaznawi, Dr. Tsonas reviewed the case and arrived at a new diagnosis. The lesion, he said in an interview this week, "was consistent with cutaneous anthrax." Dr. Tsonas's assertion, first made to the F.B.I. in October but never disclosed, has added another layer of mystery to the investigation of last fall's deadly anthrax attacks, which has yet to focus on a specific suspect. The possibility of a connection between the Sept. 11 attacks and the subsequent anthrax-laced letters has been explored by officials since the first anthrax cases emerged in October. But a recent memorandum, prepared by experts at the Johns Hopkins Center for Civilian Biodefense Strategies, and circulated among top government officials, has renewed a debate about the evidence. The group, which interviewed Dr. Tsonas, concluded that the diagnosis of cutaneous anthrax, which causes skin lesions, was "the most probable and coherent interpretation of the data available." The memorandum added, "Such a conclusion of course raises the possibility that the hijackers were handling anthrax and were the perpetrators of the anthrax letter attacks." A senior intelligence official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that George J. Tenet, the director of central intelligence, had recently read the Hopkins memorandum and that the issue has been examined by both the C.I.A. and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. "No one is dismissing this," the official said. "We received the memo and are working with the bureau to insure that it continues to be pursued." In their public comments, federal officials have said they are focusing largely on the possibility that the anthrax attacks were the work of a domestic perpetrator. They have hunted for suspects among scientists and others who work at laboratories that handle germs. The disclosure about Mr. Alhaznawi, who died on United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed in Pennsylvania, sheds light on another front in the investigation. Senior law enforcement officials said that in addition to interviewing Dr. Tsonas in October and again in November, they thoroughly explored any connection between the hijackers and anthrax. They said the F.B.I. scoured the cars, apartments and personal effects of the hijackers for evidence of the germ, but found none. Dr. Tsonas's comments add to a tantalizing array of circumstantial evidence. Some of the hijackers, including Mr. Alhaznawi, lived and attended flight school near American Media Inc. in Boca Raton, Fla., where the first victim of the anthrax attacks worked. Some of the hijackers also rented apartments from a real estate agent who was the wife of an editor of The Sun, a publication of American Media. In addition, in October, a pharmacist in Delray Beach, Fla., said he had told the F.B.I. that two of the hijackers, Mohamad Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi, came into the pharmacy looking for something to treat irritations on Mr. Atta's hands. If the hijackers did have anthrax, they would probably have needed an accomplice to mail the tainted letters, bioterrorism experts knowledgeable about the case said. The four recovered anthrax letters were postmarked on Sept. 18 and Oct. 9 in Trenton. It is also possible, experts added, that if the hijackers had come into contact with anthrax, it was entirely separate from the supply used by the letter sender. For his part, Dr. Tsonas said he believed that the hijackers probably did have anthrax. "What were they doing looking at crop-dusters?" he asked, echoing experts' fears that the hijackers may have wanted to spread lethal germs. "There are too many coincidences." In recent interviews, Dr. Tsonas, an emergency room doctor, said Mr. Alhaznawi came into the hospital one evening in June 2001, along with a man who federal investigators believe was another hijacker, Ziad al-Jarrah, believed to have taken over the controls of United Flight 93. They used their own names, he added, not aliases. "They were well-dressed foreigners," he said. "I assumed they were tourists." The men explained that Mr. Alhaznawi had developed the ulcer after hitting his leg on a suitcase two months earlier. Dr. Tsonas recalled that Mr. Alhaznawi appeared to be in good health, and that he denied having an illness like diabetes that might predispose him to such lesions. The wound, he recalled, was a little less than an inch wide and blackish, its edges raised and red. Dr. Tsonas said he removed the dry scab over the wound, cleansed it and prescribed Keflex, an antibiotic that is widely used to combat bacterial infections but is not specifically recommended for anthrax. The encounter lasted perhaps 10 minutes, Dr. Tsonas said. He took no cultures and had no thoughts of anthrax, a disease at that time was extremely rare in the United States and was unfamiliar even to most doctors. In October, amid news reports about the first anthrax victims, Dr. Tsonas, like other doctors, threw himself into learning more about the disease. An incentive was that his hospital is relatively near American Media, so victims there might come to Holy Cross for treatment. Dr. Tsonas said he forgot entirely about the two men until federal agents in October showed him pictures of Mr. Alhaznawi and Mr. Jarrah, and he made positive identifications. Then, agents gave Dr. Tsonas a copy of his own notes from the emergency room visit and he read them. "I said, `Oh, my God, my written description is consistent with cutaneous anthrax,' " Dr. Tsonas recalled. "I was surprised." He discussed the disease and its symptoms with the agents, explaining what else could possibly explain the leg wound. A spider bite was unlikely, he said. As for the hijacker's explanation a suitcase bump he also judged that unlikely. "That's a little unusual for a healthy guy, but not impossible," he said. After his meetings with F.B.I., Dr. Tsonas was contacted early this year by a senior federal medical expert, who asked him detailed questions about the tentative diagnosis. Last month, experts at Johns Hopkins also called Dr. Tsonas, saying they, too, were studying the evidence. The Hopkins analysis was done by Dr. Thomas Inglesby and Dr. Tara O'Toole, director of the center in Baltimore and an assistant secretary for health and safety at the federal Energy Department from 1993 to 1997. In an interview, Dr. O'Toole said that after consulting with additional medical experts on the Alhaznawi case, she was "more persuaded than ever" that the diagnosis of cutaneous anthrax was correct. She said the Florida mystery, as well as the entire anthrax inquiry, might benefit from a wider vetting. "This is a unique investigation that has many highly technical aspects," she said. "There's legitimate concern that the F.B.I. may not have access to the kinds of expertise that could be essential in putting all these pieces together." John E. Collingwood, an F.B.I. spokesman, said the possibility of a connection between the hijackers and the anthrax attacks had been deeply explored. "This was fully investigated and widely vetted among multiple agencies several months ago," Mr. Collingwood said. "Exhaustive testing did not support that anthrax was present anywhere the hijackers had been. While we always welcome new information, nothing new has in fact developed." |
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I wonder why this just happens to be announced now.
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