On July 4, 1993, United States Postal employee Ahmed Abdel
Sattar spoke to the press about Abdel Rahman's arrest and said "we
haven't decided the time or place, but our Muslim community will
demonstrate its outrage at the arrest of the Sheik." In the indictment
of the Staten Island Post Office employee who worshipped in Brooklyn,
the United States government alleged that following his arrest, Abdel
Rahman, in a message to his followers recorded while he was in prison,
urged: "Oh Muslims! Oh Muslims! ... It is a duty upon all the
Muslims around the world to free the Sheikh, and to rescue him from his
jail." Referring to the United States, he implored, "Muslims
everywhere, dismember their nation, tear them apart, ruin their
economy, provoke their corporations, destroy their embassies, attack
their interests, sink their ships, and shoot down their planes, kill
them on land, at sea, and in the air. Kill them wherever you find
them." His list is a pretty concise summary of the terrorist actions
taken over the next decade.
The tactic of lethal letters delivered by the US Post Office --
although not mentioned in this list by Abdel-Rahman -- was not merely
the modus operandi of the militant islamists inspired by Abdel-Rahman,
it was their signature. The islamists sent letter bombs in late
December 1996 from Alexandria, Egypt to newspaper offices in New York
City and Washington, D.C. and people in symbolic positions. Musical
Christmas cards apparently postmarked in Alexandria, Egypt on December
21, 1996 contained improvised explosive devices. The bombs were
mailed on the Night of Decree or Night of Measures. The letters were
sent in connection with the earlier bombing of the World Trade Center
and the imprisonment of the blind sheik, Sheik Abdel Rahman. The former
leader of the Egyptian Al-Gamaa al-Islamiya ("Islamic Group"),
Abdel-Rahman was also a spiritual leader of Al Qaeda.
The letter bombs were sent in connection with the treatment of
the Egyptian islamists imprisoned for the earlier attack on the WTC and
a related plot. The purpose of the letter bombs -- which resulted in
minimal casualty -- was to send a message. (There initially was an
outstanding $2 million reward -- under the rewards for justice program,
the reward now is up to $5 million.) There was no claim of
responsibility. There was no explanation. Once one had been received,
the next ten, mailed on two separate dates, were easily collected.
Sound familiar? Two bombs were also sent to Leavenworth, where a key
WTC 1993 defendant was imprisoned, addressed to "Parole Officer." (The
position does not exist).
The FBI suspected the Vanguards of Conquest, a mysterious
group led by Egyptian Islamic Jihad head Ayman Zawahiri. The group can
be thought of as either the military wing of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad
or perhaps just EIJ by another name. It is sometimes known as the New
Jihad. Yassir Al-Sirri was the Egyptian Islamic Jihad/ Vanguards of
Conquest publicist and worked out of his London-based home while on the
public dole. Another group under suspicion for the mailings was the
Egyptian Islamic Group. The blind sheik Abdel Rahman simultaneously
was the spiritual leader of Al Qaeda, Egyptian Islamic Group and
Egyptian Islamic Jihad/Vanguards of Conquest. The next month, on
February 12, 1997, the Islamic Group, for its part, issued a
statement: "The Islamic Group declares all American interests
legitimate targets to its legitimate "jihad until the release of al
prisoners, on top of whom is Abdel Rahman."
Abdel-Rahman's friend, Ayman Zawahiri, was head of Al
Qaeda's biochemical program and the blind sheik's son. Mohammed was on
Al Qaeda's three- member WMD committee. Ayman named his biochem
program Zabadi or "Curdled Milk." The CIA has known of Zawahiri's
plans to use anthrax since July 1998, when the CIA seized a disc from
Ayman Zawahiri's right-hand, Ahmed Mabruk during his arrest outside a
restaurant by the CIA in Baku, Azerbaijan. At the time, Mabruk was
the head of Jihad's military operations. Mabruk was handed over to
Egyptian authorities. A close associate and former cellmate in
Dagestan in 1996, Mabruk would be at Ayman's side while Ayman would
fall to his knees during trial and weep and invoke Allah. Their
captors reportedly did not know the true identity of the prisoners.
The CIA refused to give the FBI Mabruk's laptop. FBI's Bin Laden
expert John O�Neill, head of the FBI�s New York office, tried to get
around this by sending an agent to Azerbaijan to get copies of the
computer files from the Azerbaijan government. The FBI finally got the
files after O'Neill persuaded President Clinton to personally appeal to
the president of Azerbaijan for the computer files. FBI Special Agent
Dan Coleman would later describe the laptop as the "Rosetta Stone of
Al Qaeda." O'Neill died on 9/11 in his role as head of World Trade
Center security. He died with the knowledge that Ayman Zawahiri
planned to attack US targets with anthrax -- and that Zawahiri does
not make a threat that he does not intend to try to keep.
Mabruk claimed that Zawahiri intended to use anthrax against
US targets. At the time, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency
("DTRA") set up a program at Lawrence Livermore to combat the Bin Laden
anthrax threat. The CIA also snatched Egyptian Al-Najjar, another
senior Al Qaeda member (a shura or policy-making council member no
less) who had been working for the Egyptian intelligence services.
Al-Najjar confirmed Ayman's intent to use weaponized anthrax against US
targets in connection with the detention of militant islamists in a
sworn lengthy confession. Even Zawahiri's friend, Cairo lawyer
al-Zayat, who was the blind sheik's attorney, in March 1999 said
that Bin Laden and Zawahiri were likely to resort to the biological and
chemical agents they possessed given the extradition pressure senior Al
Qaeda leaders faced. He was in touch by telephone with US Post Office
employee Sattar and Islamic Group leaders thoughout that year about the
group's strategy to free the blind sheik. An islamist who had been a
close associate of Zawahiri later would explain that Zawahiri spent a
decade and had made 15 separate attempts to recruit the necessary
expertise to weaponize anthrax in Russia and the Middle East.
Zawahiri and the Vanguards of Conquest were seeking to recreate
Mohammed's taking of mecca by a small band through violent attacks on
Egyptian leaders. By the late 1990s, Zawahiri had determined that the
Egyptian Islamic Jihad should focus on its struggle against the United
States and hold off on further attacks against the Egyptian regime.
The cause of the Egyptian militants had suffered a serious
setback with the murder of tourists at Luxor. An Assistant US
Attorney set the scene in Luxor in his opening argument by federal
prosecutor in the prosecution of United States postal employee Ahmed
Abdel Sattar, the chief aide to blind sheik Abdel-Rahman.
"It is November 17, 1997. It is the morning. The scene is one of
Egypt's most popular tourist attractions, the magnificent archeological
ruins of the City of Luxor. Tour buses pull in and out of the site.
Tourists are milling about, snapping photographs and soaking up the
ancient history. In a heartbeat the serenity of this moment is
shattered by the sounds of gun fire and screaming. Seemingly out of
nowhere guns have appeared and have begun indiscriminately shooting
tourists. Tourists are running everywhere trying to escape the
carnage, some huddling together near the entrance of the temple, and
with nowhere to run are massacred. A guard is shot in the heard, a
fleeing woman is shot from behind, a pleads with one of the attackers,
kill me, not my wife.
In the end, dozens of tourists are dead."
After the public relations debacle of Luxor, and after the August
1998 US embassy bombings, al-Qaeda actively sought religious and legal
opinions from Movement scholars around the world who might help
rationalize the killing of innocents. The following letter is an
example of such a letter taken from Zawahiri's computer.
"Folder: Outgoing Mail
Date: September 26, 1998
Dear highly respected _______
I present this to you as your humble brother concerning the preparation
of the lawful study that I am doing on the killing of civilians. This
is a very sensitive case�as you know�especially these days.
It is very important that you provide your opinion of this matter,
which has been forced upon us as an essential issue in the course and
ideology of the Muslim movement.
[Our] questions are:
1- Since you are the representative of the Islamic Jihad group, what
is your lawful stand on the killing of civilians, specifically when
women and children are included? And please explain the legitimate law
concerning those who are deliberately killed.
2- According to your law, how can you justify the killing of innocent
victims because of a claim of oppression?
3- What is your stand concerning a group that supports the killing of
civilians, including women and children?
With our prayers, wishing you success and stability."
A February 1999 letter signed by "Army of Suicidals Group 66,
Bin Laden Militant Wing" threatened anthrax attacks against Westerners
if they stayed in Yemen beyond a 11-day ultimatum ending February 27,
1999. Investigators considered a possible connection to the
attempted extradition to Yemen of the London-based Egyptian Islamic
preacher Abu Hamza al-Masri. Emails in the Spring of 1999 from
Zawahiri to Egyptian Mohammed Atef, Al Qaeda's military commander, and
former Cairo police sergeant, indicate that Ayman was a close student
of the USAMRIID anthrax program. He believed that the Koran instructed
that a jihadist should use the weapons used by the crusader. "What we
know is that he's always said it was a religious obligation to have the
same weapons as their enemies," former CIA Bin Laden unit counter
terrorism chief Michael Scheuer once explained.
Blind sheik spokesman and US Postal employee Ahmed Abdel
Sattar told PBS' Frontline in 1999 that the US was at war with Islam.
"Yes, even though that President Clinton would say differently. But who
believes him? He said he never had sex with Monica, so I mean, you want
me to believe that he's not at war with Islam?" Sattar said the 1998
embassy bombings were part of this war between the US and Islam. "Yes.
I look at it, yes, it is a part of a war. A war declared by the
American government. And some people try to react. And their reaction
comes out sometimes as acts like this. The World Trade Center, or the
embassy bombing in Nairobi and [the assassination of] Sadat."
Cairo -based writers of the charity Islamic Assembly of North
America ("IANA") , Kamal Habib and Gamal Sultan, approached the blind
sheik Abdel Rahman about starting a political party in early 1999. On
March 1 and 2, 1999, Lynne Stewart and translator Yousry visited Abdel
Rahman in prison. On March 9, following that visit, Abdel Rahman
issued a statement rejecting a proposal that the Islamic Group form a
political party in Egypt. That day, the Islamic Group military
commander Mustafa Hamza spoke with the blind sheik's liaison, US Post
Office employee Abdel Sattar. In March, Cairo attorney Montasser Al
Zayat told the press that Ayman likely was going to use weaponized
anthrax against US targets to retaliate against the rendering and
detention of the Egyptian militants. The next month, the Blind
Sheik's publicist Sattar spoke with Taha, the IG head close to the
Taliban and Bin Laden, in a three-way call with Cairo attorney
Al-Zayat. Sattar also spoke on the telephone with Vanguards of
Conquest spokesman Al Sirri (based in London). From the beginning, the
weaponization of anthrax for use against US targets was inextricably
linked to the detention of senior militant Egyptian leaders, including
the blind sheik.
In April, Ayman Zawahiri wrote Taha and asked him about the
proposal by Sultan and EIJ founder Habib to form a political party:
"What are the facts regarding report alleging that Salah Hashim (One of
Islamic Jihad�s founders and imprisoned at the time of the letter) has
called for the formation of a new political party?" (Salah Hashim
sought to co-found the party, along with IANA writers Habib and
Sultan). Ayman specifically noted that Mohammed Islambouli (abu
Khalid), the brother of Sadat's assassin, had withdrawn from the
Islamic Group to protest the cease-fire announced by the IG shura
members imprisoned in Egypt. Ayman asked Taha what was Montasser
al-Zayat's opinion on the issue.
Then in September 1999, the blind sheik again addressed the
cease-fire initiative that had been launched two years earlier by
imprisoned IG leaders in Egypt. In a telephone call with Taha on
September 20, US Postal employee Sattar explained, on the blind sheik's
behalf, that the initiative should be ignored if necessary to
accomplish IG's goals. Abdel-Rahman and Sattar thought the cease-fire
was not working because it had not secured the release of the IG
leaders from prison. Sattar was coming around to Taha's aggressive
views that there might be a need for another Luxor.
It likely was a happy coincidence for Ayman and IG leaders
Rifai Taha, Mustafa Hamza and Mohammed Islambouli, that an active
supporter of the Taliban -- and associate of Bin Laden's spiritual
advisor, dissident Saudi Sheik al-Hawali -- was a US biodefense
insider. Ali Al-Timimi was a graduate student in the same building
where famed Russian bioweapon Ken Alibek and former USAMRIID head
Charles Bailey worked at George Mason University. The three worked at
the secure facility at Discovery Hall at the Prince William 2 campus.
Dr. Alibek and Dr. Bailey headed a biodefense program funded by
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency ("DARPA"). Al-Timimi had a
top security clearance and had previously worked for SRA International
doing mathematical support work for the Navy. In 2000 and 2001,
Timimi was a graduate student in computational sciences. His field was
bioinformatics. Al-Timimi tended to travel to give speeches on
interpretation of the koran only during semester breaks.
Al-Timimi spoke in very moderate, measured tones in the UK,
Canada, and Australia -- once even in China. He spoke against
feminism, about the unfavorable treatment of islam in the secular
media, about signs of the coming day of judgment and the correct
interpretation of the koran and hadiths, and the destruction of the
Buddha statutes by the Taliban. Locally, he spoke regularly at the
Falls Church center that also housed offices of the charity, the Muslim
World League. Timimi was associated with the charity Islamic Assembly
of North America ("IANA"), based in Ann Arbor, Michigan. His speeches
are widely distributed on the internet and tend to focus on religious
rather than political issues. Years earlier, the blind sheik's son,
Mohammed Abdel-Rahman was scheduled to come from Afghanistan to speak
at the IANA 1993 conference alongside Ali Al-Timimi and former EIJ
member Gamal Sultan. In July and August 2001, Al-Timimi spoke in
Toronto and London alongside "911 imam" Awlaki and unindicted WTC 1993
conspirator Bilal Philips.
US-trained Malaysian biochemist Yazid Sufaat met with 9/11 plotters
and two hijackers in January 2000. Sufaat was a member of Al Qaeda and
a member of Jemaah Islamiah ("JI"). JI has ties with the Moro Front.
Sufaat used his company called Green Laboratory Medicine to buy items
useful to Al Qaeda. Zacarias Moussaoui, who had a crop dusting manual
when he was arrested, stayed at Sufaat's condominium in 2000 when he
was trying to arrange for flight lessons in Malaysia. Yazid Sufaat
provided Moussaoui with a letter indicating that he was a marketing
representative for Infocus Technologies signed "Yazid Sufaat, Managing
Director." Sufaat had given Moussaoui an e-mail greenlab@usa.net that
was accessed by authorities on September 19, 2001. The crop dusters
were to be part of a "second wave." Al Qaeda's regional operative,
Hambali, was at the key January 2000 meeting and supervised Sufaat.
Khalid Mohammed's involvement dates back to Bojinka, as did Hambali's.
The money for Bojinka, a plot to simultaneously bomb airliners and to
assassinate the Pope, went from Bin Laden's brother-in-law Khalifa to
the Abu Sayyaf Group, Al Qaeda's primary Philippine affiliate, and then
on to the cell that included KSM.
When 9/11 hijacker Saeed Al-Ghamdi videotaped his will in 2000,
he praised Saudi Sheik Al-Hawali. Telephone records for Mounir
el-Mottasedeq, a Moroccan convicted in Germany of helping Mohammed Atta
and other members of the �Hamburg cell� that planned 9/11 show that, in
the months prior to the attacks, he made repeated calls to Al-Hawali�s
Riyadh offices.
In late January 2001, the Immigration Minister in Canada and the
Justice Minister received an anthrax threat in the form of anthrax
hoax letters. The letters were sent upon the announcement of bail
hearing for a detained Egyptian Islamic Jihad leader who had managed
Bin Laden's farm in Sudan. Canada announced on January 18, 2001 that
an Egyptian Islamic Jihad Shura member, Mahmoud Mahjoub, would have a
January 30 bail hearing. The court dismissed a motion directed to the
constitutionality of his detention on January 23. Soon after, someone
sent an anthrax threat letter to the Minister of Citizenship and
Immigration. Minister Caplan had signed the security certificate
authorizing Mahjoub's detention. After arriving in Canada in 1996,
Mahjoub continued to be in contact with high level militants, including
his former supervisor, al-Duri, an Iraqi reputed to be Bin Laden's
chief procurer or weapons of mass destruction.
In February 2001, the CIA briefed the President in a
Presidential Daily Brief ("PDB") on "Bin Laden's Interest in Biological
and Radiological Weapons" in a still-classified briefing memorandum.
Like the PDB on Bin Laden's threat to use planes to free the blind
sheik, the February 2001 would illustrate the wisdom that most
intelligence is open source. There was little about Ayman' s plan to
use anthrax against US targets in retaliation for rendering of EIJ
leaders that was not available to anyone paying attention.
On March 14, 2001, former USAMRIID head and Ames researcher
Charles L. Bailey and famed Russian bioweaponeer Ken Alibek filed a
patent application for a process to treat cell culture with
hydrophobic silicon dioxide so as to permit greater concentration upon
drying. Dr. Bailey was in Room 156B of GMU's Discovery Hall at the
Center for Biodefense. Ali Al-Timimi, an associate of radical Saudi
sheik al-Hawali, considered to be Bin Laden's spiritual mentor, was a
graduate student who worked in the same building.
The website of the Islamic Assembly of North America ("IANA")
contained "Provision of Suicide Operations," dated June 19, 2001, that
stated: "The mujahid [or warrior] must kill himself if he knows this
will lead to killing a great number of the enemies ... or demolishing a
center vital to the enemy or its military forces. ... In this new
era, this can be accomplished with the modern means of bombing or
bringing down an airplane on an important location that will cause the
enemy great losses." On August 26, 2001, IANA's website
www.islamway.com published a propaganda statement that encouraged
individuals to join arms against the West titled "An Invitation to
Jihad," stating that "t]he mujahid brothers will accept you with open
arms and within a period of two weeks you will be given commando
training and will be sent to the frontline." Whatever the debate on
whether nonconventional weapons were forbidden (haram), some of the
sheiks whose fatwas were appearing on the IANA website were likely to
take a more permissive view.
Then came September 11. The FBI first questioned Al-Timimi
within the week.
On September 18, someone mailed some newspapers letters
containing anthrax and a message urging the destruction of the US and
Israel. Biographer Draper in Dead Certain reports that on October 4,
2001, Bush teared up during a speech at the State Department thanking
them for their hard work. Back at the White House, Bush motioned
Fleischer into the Oval Office. "A Boca Raton tabloid editor had
checked into a Florida hospital yesterday, Bush told Fleischer.
Anthrax. The veil of resoluteness fell away from the president. His
shoulders were hunched. Fleischer had never seen him more upset.
Neither man said a word -- neither had to: This was it, the second
wave."
Then, on or about October 6, 2001 (with a postmark after
the Monday holiday of October 9), someone sent very fine powderized
anthrax to US Senators Leahy and Daschle with a similar message. An
infant visiting ABC was one of the first affected, which should have
been haram in anyone's book. Five people died, including an elderly
woman and a hospital worker.
After a bombing raid at a Qaeda camp in Darunta, Afghanistan US
forces found 100+ typed and handwritten pages of documents that shed
light on Al Qaeda's early anthrax planning and the Defense Intelligence
Agency eventually gave me. It was not clear whether or not they had
yet acquired virulent anthrax or weaponized it, but it was clear that
the planning was well along. When Cheney was briefed on the
documents in late 2001, he immediately called a meeting of FBI and CIA.
"I'll be very blunt," the Vice President started. "There is no
priority of this government more important than finding out if there is
a link between what's happened here and what we've found over there
with Qaeda." At one point, security personnel thought that the home
belonging to Elizabeth Cheney, his daughter, had been hit by an anthrax
attack. Elizabeth 'had to call her nanny to get her to take the kids
to be tested for exposure. A June 1999 memo from Ayman to military
commander Atef said that "the program should seek cover and talent in
educational institutions, which it said were 'more beneficial to us and
allow easy access to specialists, which will greatly benefit us in the
first stage, God willing.' '' Thus, in determining whether Al Qaeda
was responsible for the anthrax mailings in the Fall of 2001, the FBI
and CIA knew based on the growing documentary evidence available by
that December, that Al Qaeda operatives were likely associated with
non-governmental organizations and working under the cover of
universities. From early on, the CIA and FBI knew that charity is as
charity does.
At a White House press conference on December 17, 2001, Ari
Fleischer said: "There is nothing that has been final that has been
concluded. But the evidence is increasingly looking like it was a
domestic source. But, again, this remains something that is not final,
nor totally conclusive yet. ...I can just report to you the information
that I've heard. I can't give you the scientific reasons behind it.
But you can assume that they're based on investigative and scientific
means." He emphasized: "There's a big difference between the source
of it and who sent it, because the two do not have to be tied."
Among the supporters of these militant islamists were people who
blended into society and were available to act when another part of the
network requested it. Two letters -- one typed and an earlier
handwritten one -- written by a scientist named Rauf Ahmad detail his
efforts to obtain a pathogenic strain of anthrax. He attended
conferences on anthrax and dangerous pathogens such as one in
September 2000 at the University of Plymouth cosponsored by DERA, the
UK Defense Evaluation and Research Agency. A handwritten letter from
1999 is written on the letterhead of the oldest microbiology society
in Great Britain. The 1999 documents seized in Afghanistan by US
forces by Rauf describe the author's visit to the special confidential
room at the BL-3 facility where 1000s of pathogenic cultures were kept;
his consultation with other scientists on some of technical problems
associated with weaponizing anthrax; the bioreactor and laminar flows
to be used in Al Qaeda's anthrax lab; a conference he attended on
dangerous pathogens cosponsored by UK's Porton Down and Society for
Applied Microbiology , and the need for vaccination and containment.
Rauf had arranged to take a lengthy post-doc leave from his employer
and was grousing that what the employer would be paying during that
12-month period was inadequate. Malaysian Yazid Sufaat, who told his
wife he was working for a Taliban medical brigade, got the job instead
of Rauf.
A typed memo reporting on a lab visit, which included tour of a
BioLevel 3 facility, where there were 1000s of pathogenic samples.
The memo mentioned the pending paperwork relating to export of the
pathogens. The documents were provided to me by the Defense
Intelligence Agency ("DIA") under the Freedom of Information Act.
Earlier correspondence between Rauf Ahmad and Dr. Zawahiri from before
the lab visit described in the typed memo. The handwritten letter was
reporting on a different, earlier visit, where the anthrax had been
nonpathogenic. There are additional handwritten notes about the plan
to use non-governmental-organizations (NGOs), technical institutes and
medical labs as cover for aspects of the work, and training
requirements for the various personnel at the lab in Afghanistan.
One of the first things FBI Special Agent Jack Cloonan from the
FBI's New York Office did after the anthrax mailings was to fly down
to Sudan with CIA agents and meet with al-Duri, Mahjoub's former
supervisor at Bin Laden's farm in Sudan. After 9/11, FBI agents
questioned Ali Al-Timimi, a microbiology graduate student in a program
jointly run by George Mason University and the American Type Culture
Collection ("ATCC"). An undercover operation was run at the Falls
Church islamic center.
By spring of 2002, Ali Al-Timimi was on GMU staff and paid
$70,000 a year. At sometime in 2002, officials learned of
communications between Al-Timimi and Bin Laden's spiritual adviser,
radical Saudi sheik al-Hawali.
In March 2002, a crude biological weapons site was found. U.S.
forces discovered a site near the southern Afghan city of Kandahar that
appeared to be an Al Qaeda biological weapons lab under construction.
Zawahiri's plan, evidenced in the documents found previous in the Fall,
was to move the location of the lab every 3 months.
In late June 2002, quoting unnamed law enforcement officials, the
Associated Press reported that up to 200 polygraph tests had been
given to current and former employees of the Battelle Institute and of
Dugway Proving Ground in Utah, where scientists have developed a
powdered form of anthrax for testing biological defense systems. It
was Dugway that provided the simulant used in testing after the 2001
threat letter relating to the detention of the former manager of Bin
Laden's farm in Sudan.
In August 2002, Afghan police found a store of chemicals in a
house in Kabul formerly occupied by a Saudi non-governmental
organization, the WAFA Humanitarian Organization. Local media reports
called it a terrorist laboratory. "Some containers and documents have
been found by the police authorities," a spokesman for international
peacekeepers said. One local report said that the discovery included
36 types of chemicals, explosive materials, fuses, laboratory equipment
and some "terroristic guide books." It said the laboratory was found in
a residence in the diplomatic area of Kabul in a building that had been
used by an Arab national who headed the group prior to 9/11. WAFA was
a militant supporter of the Taliban. Documents found in WAFA�s offices
in Afghanistan revealed that the charity was intimately involved in
assassination plots against U.S. citizens as well as the distribution
of �how to� manuals on chemical and biological warfare. U.S. officials
have described WAFA as a key component of Bin Laden�s organization.
In 2002, a man named Singh tried to purchase over the internet a
wireless video module and a control module for use in an unmanned
aerial vehicle ("UAV"). He chose an airborne video system with a
camera and transmitter able to transmit video images from a UAV back to
a receiver from as far as 15 miles away. The video camera could be used
in military reconnaissance and in helping aim artillery and other
weaponry across enemy lines. Singh placed his order from England, but
the company was unable to confirm Singh's overseas credit card. Two
young men from Northern Virginia, among the group later known as the
"Virginia Paintball Defendants," Chapman and Khan, assisted him in
completing the purchases. In the summer of 2002, Singh visited
Virginia, staying first with one of them and then with the other. Ali
Timimi was unindicted co-conspirator number 1 in the Virginia Paintball
Case, and was only later identified by Prosecutors (and then separately
indicted). As the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals later explained, the
pair "attended the Dar al Arqam Islamic Center in Falls Church,
Virginia where Ali Timimi, a primary lecturer, spoke of the necessity
to engage in violent jihad against the enemies of Islam and the 'end
of time' battle between Muslims and non-Muslims."
Ali Timimi drafted a letter from dissident Saudi sheik Hawali
dated October 6, 2002 and had it hand delivered it to every member of
the US Congress just before their vote authorizing the use of force
against Iraq. The letter was from al-Hawali (not Timimi), and warned
of the disastrous consequences that would follow an invasion of Iraq.
Rm 154A in George Mason's Discovery Hall (down from former
USAMRIID head Dr. Bailley in Rm 156B) would be Victor Morozov's room
number when he first assumed Timimi's phone number in 2004 (and before
he moved to a newly constructed, adjacent building). Morozov was the
co-inventor with Dr. Bailey of the related cell culture process under
which the silica was removed from the spore surface. A faculty member
who would consult with Ali suggests instead that it instead was Rm.
154B, in the middle of the office suite.
Later that year, Al-Hakaymah, a long-time colleague of Taha in
the Al-Gamaa al-Islamiya (Egyptian Islamic Group) summarized the
Amerithrax investigation. Al-Hakaymah aka Abu Jihad was Al Qaeda's
spymaster. He dedicated the treatise on American intelligence and law
enforcement: "To the pious and the hidden who are not known when they
come and who are not missed when they disappear -- To those whom their
God will answer when they pray to Him. To all the eyes that are
vigilant late at night to bring victory to this religion." It was
publicized by a EIJ shura member Al-Sibai, who had been detained in
London in 1999 and then released, and now was an oft-quoted expert on
Zawahiri and his followers. Like Al Zayat, Al Sibai has been openly
critical of Al Qaeda and Zawahiri -- Al Sibai views Zawahiri's focus
on the "Far Enemy as having been disastrous for the Egyptian Islamic
groups.
In mid-February 2003, Abdel Rahman's son, who was on the WMD
committed with Egyptian Midhat Mursi, was captured in Quetta, Pakistan.
That month, a chemistry professor tasked with working on biological
and chemical weapons met with Uzair Paracha and others at an ice cream
parlor. In the Spring of 2003, Aafia Siddiqui married Amar
al-Baluchi, who had been a key lieutenant for KSM during the 9/11
planes operation. The plan was to smuggle a chemical into New York
City using a large shipping container controlled by Paracha's father.
In connection with that prosecution, the Assistant United States
Attorney would later say that MIT-graduate Aafia Siddiqui was prepared
to participate in an anthrax attack if asked.
In late February 2003, authorities searched the townhouse of
Ali Al-Timimi, a graduate student and employee in bioinformatics at
George Mason University who shared a department fax with famed Russian
bioweaponeer Ken Alibek and former USAMRIID head and anthrax researcher
Charles Bailey. Al-Timimi was a celebrated speaker and religious
scholar associated with the Islamic Assembly of North America ("IANA"),
an Ann Arbor-based charity. The Washington Post later summarized:
"The agents reached an alarming conclusion: 'Timimi is an Islamist
supporter of Bin Laden' who was leading a group 'training for jihad,'
the agent wrote in the affidavit. The FBI even came to speculate that
Timimi, a doctoral candidate pursuing cancer gene research, might have
been involved in the anthrax attacks." The same time they searched
Ali Al-Timimi's townhouse, in Virginia, on February 26, 2003, the FBI
searched the home of two PhD level food production experts. One in
Idaho and one in New York. 100 agents came to Syracuse, NY that day as
part of "Operation Imminent Horizon" and simultaneously interviewed
150 people.
A walk-in to the CIA then led to the dramatic capture of Khalid
Mohammed, Al Qaeda's #3, on March 23, 2003. Mohammed allegedly was
hiding in the home of the Pakistani bacteriologist Dr. Abdul Qadoos
Khan. Along with Zawahiri, Abdel Rahman and his two sons have had
considerable influence over Bin Laden. He reportedly treated them
like sons. In jail in the early 1980s, Zawahiri caused considerable
tension by challenging the blind sheik's ability to lead a coalition of
the Egyptian Islamic Jihad and the Egyptian Islamic Group. Zawahiri and
Bin Laden nevertheless are Rahman's friends. The leaders in charge of
Al Qaeda's anthrax production program thus had a close connection to
those imprisoned in connection with the earlier bombing of the World
Trade Center. The imprisoned WTC 1993 plotter Yousef was KSM's nephew.
KSM claims to have been responsible for the planning of WTC 1993. WTC
1993 mastermind Ramzi Yousef had been the mentor of the new husband of
MIT-graduate Aafia Siddiqui.
In March 2003, handwritten notes and files on a laptop seized
upon the capture of KSM, Al Qaeda's #3, included a feasible anthrax
production plan using a spray dryer and addressed the recruitment of
necessary expertise. Although the details of the documents on
Mohammed's computer may (or may not) point to possible difficulties in
aerial dispersal, they are fully consistent with the product used in
the anthrax mailings. Al Qaeda had both the means and opportunity.
Mohammed told his interrogators that Moussaoui was not going to be part
of 9/11 but was to be part of a "second wave." KSM explained that
Moussaoui's inquiries about crop dusters may have been related to the
anthrax work being done by US-trained biochemist and Al Qaeda
operative, Malaysian Yazid Sufaat. Zacarias Moussaoui once told the
judge at his trial in a filing that he wants "anthrax for Jew
sympathizer only."
Bacteriologist Abdul Qadoos Khan was charged along with his
son, Ahmed, for harboring the fugitives. As of March 28, 2003, he was
in a hospital for a cardiac problem and had been granted "pre-arrest
bail."
A man named Muklis Yunos, who reportedly received training
on use of anthrax as a biological weapon in Afghanistan according to
Philippine intelligence reports, was arrested on May 25, 2003, and
cooperated with authorities over a bucket of spicy Kentucky Fried
Chicken. Yunos had been Hambali's right-hand man and was in charge of
special operations of Moro Islamic Liberation Front ("MILF").
In early June 2003, a Central Intelligence Agency ("CIA")
report publicly concluded that the reason for Mohammed Atta's and
Zacarias Moussaoui's inquiries into cropdusters was for the
contemplated use in dispersing biological agents such as anthrax. It
had long been known Osama Bin Laden was interested in using cropdusters
to disperse biological agents (since the testimony of millennium bomber
Ahmed Ressam). An early September 2003 Newsweek article included a
rumor by a Taliban source that at a meeting in April 2003 Bin Laden was
planning an "unbelievable" biological attack, the plans for which had
suffered a setback upon the arrest of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. He had
been captured the previous month in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. Tenet in
his May 2007 book wrote: "And in early 2003, al-Qaida canceled a
planned cyanide attack on the New York City subway, Al-Zawahiri
recalled the operatives in New York because 'we have something better
in mind.'" Tenet noted that the CIA still does not know what
al-Zawahiri meant but adds that the cyanide attack 'was not
sufficiently inspiring' for al-Qaida ..."
The attorney for White House staffer Scooter Libby revealed
that Libby in July 2003 was preoccupied with many national security
issues, including the possibility al-Qaida had brought anthrax into the
United States. He met twice with Germs author Judy Miller in DC.
Libby's attorney read about these threats from a court-approved summary
of classified information in arguing that Libby had honestly forgotten
what he told reporters about Valerie Plame being a CIA operative.
(When Libby's attorneys announced that Libby in fact was not going to
testify, the Judge excluded any testimony about terrorist matters in
July 2003 that Libby may have addressed.)
Anthrax lab coordinator Hambali was arrested in August 2003 in
the quiet city of Ayuttullah, Thailand, which is about half way between
Bangkok and Chang Mai. He was sent to Jordan. In Autumn 2003,
extremely virulent anthrax was found at a house in Kandahar -- after
regional operative Hambali was harshly interrogated. Al Qaeda had the
extremely virulent anthrax before 9/11. Sufaat's two principal
assistants -- and Egyptian and a Sudanese man -- were also captured in
2003 and are in custody. They had been assisting Sufaat prior to 9/11.
The FBI dropped the continuous conspicuous surveillance of Dr. Steve
Hatfill in early Fall 2003, after extremely virulent anthrax that they
knew could be readily weaponized was found at the residence pointed
out by Hambali. Prior to that, the "Hatfill theory" had been an
alternative hypothesis pursued by one of the squads within Amerithrax.
In connection with defending a civil rights claim by former
USAMRIID scientist Steve Hatfill, the FBI described the anthrax probe
as "unprecedented in the FBI's 95-year history." Agents had spent
231,000 hours up to that date. The head of the investigation said
that the investigation was "active and ongoing" and said agents' time
was divided between checking into individuals who might be connected to
the attacks and a scientific effort to determine how the spores
themselves were made using "cutting-edge forensic techniques and
analysis." The court papers did not indicate that Dr. Hatfill was
still among those being investigated. Hatfill was labeled a "person of
interest" in the probe in August 2002 by Attorney General John Ashcroft
in responding to press inquiries for the reason for searches and
surveillance that Dr. Hatfill had reported. By late 2003, all
conspicuous surveillance had ended, according two unnamed federal law
enforcement officials who spoke on condition of anonymity. The head of
the investigation cautioned that Hatfill's lawsuit could force the FBI
to divulge its "interest in specific individuals," who could flee the
country, destroy evidence, intimidate witnesses, or concoct alibis.
In mid-December 2003, two brothers, Michael Ray and James
Stubbs, were arrested in a Manila suburb where they were fundraising
for a charity that supported the militant islamists and allegedly in
contact with militant brothers. Michael Ray, an American, had been a
HVAC technician at Lawrence Livermore near San Francisco -- until
March 2000 -- where the Defense Threat Reduction Agency had launched a
program to combat the Bin Laden anthrax threat in 1998. His brother,
James, Jr., also known as Jamil Daud Mujahid. James reportedly was
monitored saying that he had been a classmate of bin Laden and had
named his son Osama. James once was a policeman in California and a
teacher in Missouri. James allegedly met with members of Abu Sayyef and
Moro Islamic Liberation Front while in the Philippines doing charity
fundraising. The brothers had been under surveillance at the time of
their arrest. James Stubbs, according to some reports, had recently
left a job as a teacher in California to study Arabic in Sudan. Other
reports suggested that his recent work instead involved training dogs.
Authorities allege that the brothers in May 2003 had met with several
charity groups suspected of being al-Qaida fronts, founded by Osama bin
Laden's brother-in-law Khalifa.
In mid-April 2004, Patrick Hughes, Lieutenant General (Retired),
Assistant Secretary for Information Analysis, Homeland Security
Department testified before the 9/11 Commission. He explained that
interrogations and other evidence revealed that Al Qaeda wanted to
strike the US with a nonconventional weapon, most notably anthrax.
In May 2004, Palestinian Marwan Jabour was arrested by
authorities in Lahore, Pakistan. "He was in touch with top Al Qaeda
operational figures and was strongly linked to Al Qaeda chemical and
biological efforts and had provided some funding for an Al Qaeda
[biological weapons lab," one anonymous counterintelligence official
was quoted in the press as saying. After dinner with a Professor at
Lahore University, some men on the street approached him and asked him
about his friend, before forcing him into a car. The men also arrested
the Professor and another friend who had joined them for dinner. The
men took him to the local station of the Pakistan Inter Services
Intelligence ("ISI") When finally released two years later, he gave a
rare glimpse into the conditions in which detainees have been secretly
held. He first was held for a month at a secret detention facility
operated by the U.S. and Pakistan, as described in detail in the report
"Ghost Prisoner: Two Years in Secret CIA Detention." He was flown to
a CIA secret prison, that he believes was in Afghanistan, before
finally being flown to Jordan last summer, transferred to Israel and
eventually released in the Gaza Strip. He admits having trained in
Afghanistan in 1998 and then fighting with the Taliban. He
acknowledges helping some Al Qaeda figures escape to Pakistan in 2003.
Jabour denies any ties to terrorism. He says the mujahideen he helped
relocate to Pakistan in 2003, because of his familiarity with the area
and his fluency in Urdu, were "unaffiliated" and had not sworn an oath
of loyalty to Al Qaeda.
In a statement issued June 16, 2004, the 9/11 Commission Staff
concluded that "Al Qaeda had an ambitious biological weapons program
and was making advances in its ability to produce anthrax prior to
September 11. According to Director of Central Intelligence George
Tenet, al Qaeda�s ability to conduct an anthrax attack is one of the
most immediate threats the United States is likely to face." On
August 9, 2004, it was announced that in the Spring of 2001, a man
named El-Shukrijumah, also known as Jafar the Pilot, who was part of a
"second wave," had been casing New York City helicopters. Photographs
from a seized computer disc included the controls and the locks on the
door between the passengers and pilot. In a bulletin, the FBI noted
that the surveillance might relate to a plot to disperse a chemical or
biological weapon.
MSNBC, relying on an unnamed FBI spokesperson, reported that the
FBI has narrowed the pool of labs known to have had the US Army anthrax
strain known as the " Ames strain" that was a match from 16 to 4 but
could not rule out that it was obtained overseas. Thus, not only was
it likely that an Al Qaeda perpetrator was associated with an NGO and
university, but there had to have been access to a virulent anthrax
strain that was only in a score or so of known labs, most of which
were affiliated in some way with the US government. Although
sometimes reports referred to its "ubiquitous" distribution, the major
revelation on the subject came in 2005 when pursuant to two treaties,
samples of anthrax was evaluated from Georgia and Azerbaijan and it was
claimed that former Republics of Russia also had Ames. Former
bioweaponeer Ken Alibek had first claimed in 2001 that Russia had
obtained Ames years earlier through a spy at Ft. Detrick. (A DIA source
reports that Azerbaijan did not , in fact, have Ames). "Ubiquitous"
might be best understood as 20-30 labs.
Authorities had received information, for example, from at least
one detainee at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, that
there was an anthrax storage facility in the Kabul area. Amerithrax
Agents checked the Kabul area in May 2004 but came up empty. The
Washington Post explained that "[b]ecause the deadly letters contained
the Ames anthrax spores, manufactured in the United States, authorities
entertained the possibility that they had been removed from a U.S. lab
and transported overseas." Then in November 2004, on further
information, agents had spent several weeks unsuccessfully searching an
area in the Kandahar mountains, several hundred miles outside of Kabul.
In 2005, an internal report was prepared summarizing the status of
the investigation.
On March 31, 2005, the Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities
of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction, in its
"Report to the President of the United States," concluded "al-Qai'da's
biological program was further along, particularly with regard to Agent
X [anthrax], than pre-War intelligence indicated. The program was
extensive, well-organized, and operated for two years before September
11, but intelligence insights into the program were limited. The
program involved several sites around Afghanistan. Two of these sites
contained commercial equipment and were operated by individuals with
special training." One technician was named Barq. Another was named
Wahdan.
In a court filing dated May 20, 2005, an attorney for the United
States Department of Justice wrote: "The investigation into the
anthrax attacks is one of the largest and most complex investigations
in law enforcement history. To bring those responsible to justice, the
investigation remains intensely active."
In June 2005, President of Pakistan Gen. Pervez Musharraf told CNN
in a filmed interview: "These people were involved in the ..
production of anthrax."
After a small plane accidentally entered restricted airspace near
the White House and Capitol in 2005, the danger passed quickly, but not
before bringing back frightening memories for Senator Patrick Leahy.
"Having been one of the two Senators they tried to kill with the
anthrax letter-- yes, I do react to that. But here I'm far more
concerned about all of the other people, because whatever the threat
was they thought it was enough to threaten everybody here. And there
are thousands of good men and women who work on the hill, plus the
tourists, the visitors and we want to keep them safe."
In late September 2005 letter to the Washington Post, Michael
Mason, head of Amerithrax investigation (as head of the DC Field
Office), wrote: "while not well known to the public, the scientific
advances gained from this investigation are unprecedented and have
greatly strengthened our government's ability to prepare for -- and
prevent -- biological attacks. Since the first anthrax mailing,
investigators have worked with scientists to narrow the focus of this
investigation." He continued "Despite the frustrations that come with
any complex investigation, the FBI's investigators never stop thinking
about the innocent victims of these attacks." In a press conference in
October 2005, Director Mueller said that the FBI was pursuing all
domestic and international leads. He told the public to remember 9/11.
Remember Oklahoma City. He declined to say if they had a suspect.
That year, FBI agents visited Asia, Africa and Afghanistan in the
course of the Amerithrax investigation.
In the opening argument of the Uzair Paracha trial in November
2005, the Assistant United States Attorney claimed that MIT graduate
Aafia Siddiqui was willing to help with an anthrax attack. She had
been associated with the Maktab Khidmat (Bureau of Services) branch in
Boston, which in 1993 was renamed Care International.. Any evidence
supporting the dramatic statement was later excluded from evidence on
the grounds that it would be unduly prejudicial.
That month, Interpol head Ronald Noble urged: "Al Qaeda's
global network, its proven capabilities, its deadly history, its desire
to do the unthinkable and the evidence collected about its
bio-terrorist ambitions, ominously portend a clear and present danger
of the highest order." Henry Crumpton, the U.S. State Department's
counterterrorism coordinator agreed: "The threat is real. But what
really concerns me is weapons of mass destruction," Crumpton said,
pointing to this evidence U.S. officials said they found in Afghanistan
that al-Qaeda was working on anthrax weapons. From 1999 to 2001,
Crumpton was deputy chief of operations for the CIA's
Counterterrorist Center. He led the CIA's counterterrorism campaign in
Afghanistan from 2001 to 2002.
The CIA has been quietly building a case that the anthrax mailings
were an international plot. This is old news. It's just no longer
bureaucratically impolite to openly contest the FBI's early theory
about a lone, American scientist. Many people have argued that a
US-based Al Qaeda operative is behind the earlier Fall 2001 anthrax
mailings in the US, and that the mailings served as a threat and
warning. Princeton islamist scholar Bernard Lewis has explained that
while islamists may disagree about whether killing innocents is
sanctioned by the laws of jihad, extremists like Zawahiri agree that
notice must be given before biochemical weapons are used. "The
Prophet's guidance," says Michael Scheuer, an al-Qaeda analyst retired
from the CIA who once headed its Bin Laden unit, "was always, Before
you attack someone, warn them very clearly." The anthrax mailings
followed the pattern of letters they sent in January 1997 to
newspaper branches in Washington, D.C. and New York City, as well as
symbolic targets. The letter bombs were sent in connection with the
detention of the blind sheik Abdel Rahman and those responsible for the
earlier World Trade Center bombing in 1993.
A key question is how they acquired the anthrax strain -- the
"Ames strain" first isolated by the Texas Veterinary Medical Diagnostic
Lab in 1980. The US Army recipe from the 1950s was not used, and
obtaining the unprocessed Ames strain of anthrax does not warrant the
weight given it by some press accounts. Although coveted as the "gold
standard" in vaccine research, it is known to have been at about a
score of labs and over the years an estimated 1,000 people may have had
access.
Al Qaeda's anthrax production plans on Khalid Mohammed's computer,
according to an unnamed source relied upon by the Washington Post, did
not evidence knowledge of advanced techniques in the most efficient
biological weapons. At least according to the public comments by
bioweaponeer experts William Patrick and Kenneth Alibek, under the
optimal method, there is no electrostatic charge. In the case of the
anthrax used in the mailings, there was an electrostatic charge.
(According to what the technical representative for Bucchi tells me, a
static charge is unavoidable with their mini-spraydryer). Although
there was a dominance of single spores and a trillion spore
concentration, there were clumps as large as 40 - 100 microns. (Spores
must be no bigger than 5 microns to be inhalable.) The sophistication
and effectiveness of the product perhaps lay not in just its
concentration, but in its crumbliness and how it floated right out of
the envelope. The "trillion spore" issue was an aspect of the mistaken
theory that state sponsorship was necessarily indicated. Many point to
the trillion spore concentration as extraordinary. It is far simpler,
however, to achieve a trillion spore concentration in the production of
a few grams than in industrial processing typical of a state sponsored
lab.
An FBI Lab scientist on composition of powders from the Hazardous
Materials Response Unit published the comment in 2006: "Individuals
familiar with the composition of the powders in the letters have
indicated that they were were comprised simply of spores purified to
different extents. However, a widely circulated misconception is that
the spores were produced using additives and sophisticated engineering
supposedly akin to military weapon production. The issue is usually
the basis for implying that the powders were inordinately dangerous
compared to spores alone. The persistent credence given to this
impression fosters erroneous preconceptions, which may misguide
research and preparedness efforts and generally detract from the
magnitude of hazards posed by simple spore preparations."
In October 2006, the Al Qaeda spymaster Al-Hakayma, who had
written about the Amerithrax investigation, announced that the Egyptian
Islamic Group had joined Al Qaeda. In his introduction on the tape,
Al-Zawahiri said the Egyptian group was led by Mohammed al-Islambouli,
the younger brother of Khaled al-Islambouli, the militant who
assassinated Egyptian President Anwar al-Sadat in 1981. Islambouli
fled Egypt in 1988. Mohammed al-Islambouli worked for Maktab
al-Khidmat (Bureau of Services) in Peshawar established by Azzam, Bin
Laden's mentor, and financed by Bin Laden. The blind sheik would stay
with Islambouli and Zawahiri in a large house outside Peshawar when he
visited from Brooklyn. Islambouli was deputy leader of the Islamic
Group. Islambouli told the press that the group would contiue its holy
war against the Egyptian government. In early 1993 he moved 100 west
to Jalabad, Afghanstan from Peshawar upon a crackdown on Arab
fighters. In 1993, the US and Egypt was putting pressure on ISI to
deal wit the same militants everyone had weclmed repelling the Soviets
from Afghanistan. He was sentenced to death in absentia in 1993. In
the late 1990s, Islambouli participated in planning the attacks on the
United States, to include those involving aircraft. The CIA noted in
a December 4, 1998 President Daily Briefing to President Clinton that
Islambouli was involved in planning the attacks on the US involving
aircraft and other attacks. According to the PDB, was thought to be
planning travel to the United States to meet with other Egyptian
Islamic Group members to discuss options. In recent years, Islambouli
is thought to have spent much of his time in Algeria under the assumed
name Mahmoud Youssef.
In January 2007, Muhammad Hanif, a spokesman for the Taliban,
spoke quietly to the camera. Taliban leader Mullah Omar, he said, was
living in Quetta under the protection of the Pakistan ISI. In a
press conference, the governor of the province on the border of
Afghanistan and Pakistan reported that they had found packets of
powdered anthrax in his home upon his arrest. As reported by Afghan
Islamic Press news agency and translated by BBC Worldwide Monitoring,
the Governor said: "A biological substance, anthrax, was also seized
from those arrested. They planned to send the substance in envelopes
addressed to government officials...." The claim has not been
confirmed or corroborated.
In March 2007, Khalid Mohammed confessed before a military tribunal
that "I was directly in charge, after the death of Sheikh Abu Hafs
[Atef] of managing and following up on �the cell for the production of
biological weapons, such as anthrax and others, and following up on
dirty-bomb operations on American soil.�
In April 2007, authorities announced the capture of Abdul Hadi
al-Iraqi, 46, who is thought to have been connected to the 7/7 London
subway bombing and other terror attacks in Britain. Since before
9/11, Hadi was a member of Al Qaeda's 10-member Shura Council. Hadi
was a member of al-Qaeda's Military Committee, which oversaw the
group's operations and training. A US intelligence official, speaking
on condition of anonymity, told the BBC that Mr Hadi had a
long-standing and deep awareness of al-Qaeda's training activities and
operational planning. He was in direct communication with both OBL
and Ayman. Al-Hadi was captured in 2006 while attempting to return to
his native Iraq through Turkey. He is being held at Guantanamo Bay.
Other detainees have reportedly named Abdul Hadi al-Iraqi as Al-Qaeda's
third most senior figure, after OBL and Zawahiri. He allegedly once
served as al-Zawahiri's chief aide. Abd al-Hadi is also said to have
worked with Saif al Adel, who Tenet identifies as involved in Al
Qaeda's CBRN effort. Saif al Adel purported to be the spokesman for
the Vanguards of Conquest in denying responsibility for the al-Hayat
letter bombs to newspapers in NYC and DC and people in symbolic
positions relating to the detention of the WTC 1993 plotters.
In late March 2007, prominent islamist attorney Mamduh
Ismail was arrested. Egyptian authorities accuse Mamduh Ismail, a
prominent defender of islamists and former EIJ member who had been
imprisoned for 3 years after Sadat's assassination, of working with
Ayman as a key liaison with Iraqi and Yemeni jihadis. The prosecution
claimed that Attorney Ismail linked the Al Qaeda leadership in Pakistan
and Afghanistan with networks in Algeria, Iraq and Yemen. Egypt's
Supreme State Security Prosecution also charged Ismail with leading
what officials termed al Qaeda's "Egyptian Project," an effort to
revive al Qaeda in Egypt. Ismail was the attorney for Egyptian
biochemist al-Nashar, a polymerization expert who owned keys to the
bomb flat of the 7/7 London subway bombers.
On the issue of motive and the reason Senators Daschle and Leahy
would have been targeted -- they are commonly simplistically viewed as
"liberals." Zawahiri likely targeted Senators Daschle and Leahy to
receive anthrax letters, in addition to various media outlets, because
of the appropriations made pursuant to the "Leahy Law" to military and
security forces. That money has prevented the militant islamists from
achieving their goals. Al Qaeda members and sympathizers feel that the
FBI's involvement in countries like Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan,
Indonesia, and the Philippines undermines their prospects of
establishing a worldwide Caliphate. The Fall 2001 letter from Al Qaeda
spokesman al- Kuwaiti, directed to the American public -- but which was
not released until 2006 -- claimed that the green light had been given
for a US bio attack (1) from folks who were US-based, (2) above
suspicion, and (3) who had access to US and UK government and
intelligence information. He explained: "There is no animosity
between us. You involved yourselves in this battle. The war is between
us and the Jews. You interfered in our countries and influenced our
governments to strike against the Moslems."
Senator Leahy was Chairman of both the Judiciary Committee
overseeing the FBI and Appropriations Subcommittee in charge of foreign
aid to these countries. In late September 2001, it was announced that
the President was seeking a blanket waiver that would lift all
restrictions on aid to military and security units in connection with
pursuing the militant islamists. This extradition and imprisonment of
Al Qaeda leaders, along with US support for Israel and the Mubarak
government in Egypt, remains foremost in the mind of Dr. Zawahiri and
men like Islamic Group leaders Mohammed Islambouli and Rafa Taha. At
the height of the development of his biological weapons program,
Zawahiri's brother was extradited pursuant to a death sentence in the
"Albanian returnees" case. It's hard to keep up with the stories
about billion dollar appropriations, debt forgiveness, and loan
guarantees to countries like Egypt and Israel and now even Pakistan.
Those appropriations pale in comparison to the many tens of billions in
appropriations relating to the invasion of Iraq. Al Qaeda had a motive
in mind.
The anthrax that infected the first victim, Bob Stevens, was
contained in a letter to AMI, the publisher of tabloids -- in a goofy
love letter to Jennifer Lopez enclosing a Star of David and proposing
marriage. A report by the Center for Disease Control of interviews
with AMI employees (as well as detailed interviews by Rutgers Professor
Leonard Cole) supports the conclusion that there were not one, but two,
such mailings containing anthrax. (The letters were to different AMI
publications -- one to the National Enquirer and another to The Sun).
Just because Al Qaeda likes its truck bombs and the like to be
effective does not mean they do not see the value in a deadly missive.
As Brian Jenkins once said, "terrorism is theater." A sender
purporting to be islamist sent cyanide in both early 2002 and early
2003 in New Zealand and ingredients of nerve gas in Belgium in 2003.
There's even a chapter titled "Poisonous Letter" in the Al Qaeda
manual.
The "Federal Eagle" stamp used in the anthrax mailings was a
blue-green. It was widely published among the militant islamists that
martyrs go to paradise "in the hearts of green birds." In the very
interview in which they admitted 9/11, and described the codes used for
the four targets for the planes, the masterminds admitted to the Jenny
code, the code for representing the date 9/11, and used the symbolism
of the "Green Birds." Osama Bin Laden later invoked the symbolism in
his video "The 19 Martyrs." A FAQ on the Azzam Publications website
explained that "In the Hearts of Green Birds" refers to what is
inside.
The mailer's use of "Greendale School" as the return address for
the letters to the Senators is also revealing. A May 2001 letter that
Zawahiri sent to Egyptian Islamic Jihad members abroad establish that
Zawahiri used "school" as a code word for the Egyptian militant
islamists. Green symbolizes Islam and was the Prophet Mohammed's
color. By Greendale School, the anthrax perp was being cute, just as
Yazid Sufaat was being cute in naming his lab Green Laboratory
Medicine. "Dale" means "river valley." Greendale likely refers to
green river valley -- i.e., Cairo's Egyptian Islamic Jihad or the
Islamic Group. The mailer probably is announcing that the anthrax is
from either Egyptian Islamic Jihad, Egyptian Islamic Group or Jihad-al
Qaeda, which is actually the full name of the group after the merger of
the Egyptian Islamic Jihad and al Qaeda. At the Darunta complex where
jihadis trained, recruits would wear green uniforms, except for Friday
when they were washed. In a Hadith the Messenger of Allah explains
that the souls of the martyrs are in the hearts of green birds that fly
wherever they please in the Paradise. The "4th grade" in the return
address "4th Grade, Greendale School, is American slang for "sergeant"
-- the rank of the head of Al Qaeda's military commander Mohammed Atef,
who along with Zawahiri had overseen Project Zabadi, Al Qaeda's
biochemical program.
The business-size sheet of stationery containing the anthrax to
the National Enquirer was decorated with pink and blue clouds around
the edges. In admitting that he had taken over supervising the
development of anthrax for use against the US upon Atef's death (in
November 2001), KSM separately noted that "I was the Media Operations
Director for Al-Sahab or 'The Clouds,' under Dr. Ayman Al-Zawahiri."
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act ("FISA") unit in the
Department of Justice has traditionally been known as the "Dark Side."
Everything coming from Khalid Mohammed's laptop, for example, as Agent
Van Harp, the former (now retired) Amerithrax head, once explained, is
classified. To understand the matter, journalists would have to have
the cooperation of someone coming over from the Dark Side -- which
would be a felony. The FBI and CIA counterterrorism analysts working
on the Dark Side in trying to avoid the next 9/11 are not even allowed
to tell their spouses about their work. Based, however, only on the
"open source" material readily available through databases such as
"google news" and the CIA's "Foreign Broadcast Information Service"
("FBIS"), it appears that the solution to the Amerithrax case does not
likely lie at the intersection of Bin Laden and Saddam streets among
those cubicles at Langley with desktop PCs. Instead, it lies with the
Zawahiri Task Force at Langley which hopefully has an intersection of
Ayman Avenue and Rahman Road. If not, we might be looking at a
different crossroads altogether.
Mike McConnell, Director of National Intelligence, told a
conference in early 2007: "One of my biggest worries is a terrorist
group attacking the computer network serving the United States�
financial services industry and simultaneously mailing anthrax-laced
letters." He said: �If someone were to have a sophisticated attack on
our financial services system, let�s just say cyber network broadly, at
the same time that they mailed, through the US mail, FedEx and UPS, the
equivalent of letters sprinkled with anthrax, it would have a
devastating impact.�
Whatever your political persuasion, and whatever disagreements
about individual issues relating to due process and civil liberties,
the FBI and CIA deserve our support on this issue. We are, after all,
facing this threat together. First, the nature of such an
investigation is that we lack sufficient information to second-guess
(or even know) what the FBI and Postal Inspectors on the Amerithrax
Task Force are doing. Media reports are a poor approximation of
reality because of the lack of good sources. Indeed, there has been
compartmentalization and divergent views even within the Task Force.
Second, hindsight is 20/20. Third, now that the leaks relating to US
scientist Dr. Steve Hatfill seem to have long since been plugged, it is
not likely we could do better in striking the appropriate balance
between due process and national security. The FBI's profile includes
a US-based supporter of the militant islamists. Attorney General
Ashcroft once explained that an "either-or" approach is not useful.
The media has tended to overlook the fact that when the FBI uses the
word "domestic" the word includes a US-based, highly-educated supporter
of the militant islamists.
During the course of a speech marking the sixth anniversary after
9/11, bin Laden referenced the 62nd anniversary of the atomic bombings
of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (which occurred on August 6, 1945), as
occurring only a few days prior to his speech. It�s another example
supporting the significance of the mailing dates of the anthrax to the
senior Egyptian militant, Mohammed Islambouli, who the CIA reports was
in the cell with KSM planning the attacks on the US. Islambouli was
the brother of Sadat's assassin. The letters were mailed on the
anniversary of the Sadat assassination and Camp David Accord in
conveying a message � �we have this anthrax.�
Ross E. Getman, Esq. is an attorney who maintains the website Vanguards
of Conquest: the Sheiks, Bioweaponeers and Anthrax Letters,
http://www.anthraxandalqaeda.com
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