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a. An Investigation Finally Comes Into Focus: Al-Timimi "was considered an anthrax weapons suspect." In a filing unsealed this month, Dr. Ali Al-Timimi's lawyer wrote: "Al-Timimi "was considered an anthrax weapons suspect." Dr. Al-Timimi's counsel summarizes:
The letter by Al-Timimi's counsel attached as an exhibit is equally meaty. An example of an additional detail is that in March 2002, Dr. Al-Timimi spoke with Dr. Al-Hawali (Bin Laden's sheik who was the subject of OBL's "Declaration of War") about assisting Moussaoui in his defense. The filing and the letter exhibit each copy the daughter of the lead prosecutor in Amerithrax. That prosecutor has pled the Fifth Amendment concerning all the leaks hyping a "POI" of the other Amerithrax squad, Dr. Steve Hatfill. In an e-mail obtained by FOX News, scientists at Fort Detrick openly discussed how the anthrax powder they were asked to analyze after the attacks was nearly identical to that made by one of their colleagues.
It was more than a happy coincidence for Ayman Zawahiri and Mohammed Islambouli that an active supporter of the Taliban and supporter of jihad was a US biodefense insider. Microbiologist Al-Timimi worked in the same building as famed Russian bioweapons scientist Ken Alibek and former USAMRIID Deputy Commander and Acting Commander Charles Bailey, who would come to publish a lot of research with the “Ames strain” of anthrax. Al-Timimi was a current associate and former student of Bin Laden’s spiritual advisor, dissident Saudi Sheik al-Hawali. He would speak along with the blind sheik’s son at charity conferences — the blind sheik’s son served on Al Qaeda’s WMD committee. Al-Timimi’s mentor Bilal Philips was known for recruiting members of the military to jihad. The first week 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”). Ali, according to his lawyer, had been questioned by an FBI agent and Secret Service agent in 1994 after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. He had a high security clearance for work for the Navy in he late 1990s and in 1996 for two months had worked for the White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card when he was Secretary of Transportation. As time off from his university studies permitted, Ali was an active speaker with a charity Islamic Assembly of North America. In April 2008, Dr. Alibek told me that has not seen anybody from the FBI for the last 6 years. He reports that has lectured/consulted for many government officials on these 2001-anthrax "issues" several times years ago. He says he can just assume there were some of them from FBI but that was the extent of his contact. Although he was polygraphed in early 2002 along with many others, Dr. Alibek assures me that he has never been asked to provide with his handwriting. Dr. Alibek last offered his help to them about 4 or 5 years ago -- he was thanked and decided to leave the area of biodefense afterwards. Now he is working in the field of pharmaceutical development and spends his time developing and manufacturing cardio and cancer drugs. 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 after 9/11. 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, 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 prohibited (haram) in anyone’s book. Five people died, including an elderly woman and a hospital worker. Former Defense Secretary and liberal hawk William Cohen recently wrote in Slate that long before the press was talking about Cipro he had bought some after an indirect tip from someone with the Administration. The August 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Brief (”PDB”) to the President Bush explained that Bin Laden planned to hijack some aircraft as part of an effort to free the blind sheik. A little noticed December 1998 PDB to the same effect to President Clinton, however — declassified and included in the 911 Commission Report — reported that the aircraft and attacks were being planned by the brother of Sadat’s assassin, Mohammed Islambouli. Islambouli was in a cell with Khalid Mohammed (”KSM”), who by November 2001 had come to lead the cell planning anthrax attacks in the United States. The anthrax was sent on the date of Sadat’s assassination and the date the Camp David Accords were approved. Sadat’s peace with Israel was a key reason the militants killed Sadat. On October 22, 2001, anthrax was found on an automatic slitter used to open letters at a military facilities across the Potomac River. Unless just cross-contamination of mail, this meant the White House was a target of biological terrorism: ‘I think the seminal event of the Bush administration was the anthrax attacks,’ someone close to the president told Jacob Weisberg, the editor-in-chief of the online daily magazine, Slate. ‘It was the thing that changed everything. It was the hard stare into the abyss.’” “I sat through the most gruesome briefing in the Oval Office about anthrax, how it could spread, and how we had no defenses,” Bush’s first press secretary, Ari Fleischer told the book author in the summer of 2007. “Dick Cheney was the strongest advocate of the possibility of attack and the need to prepare for it.” After 9/11, the Secret Service began monitoring the air inside and outside the White House — the chimneys of bio-detectors were visible from the front lawn. Cheney reportedly began traveling with a biohazard protective suit. At some point, fifty members of the mail-handling staff in the executive office buildings were taking Cipro. Jacob Weisberg in the 2008 The Bush Tragedy writes. “Inside the administration, the October bioterror attacks had a greater impact than is generally appreciated — and in many ways greater than 9/11. Without the anthrax attacks, Bush probably would not have invaded Iraq.” He explains: “The anthrax attacks in New York and Washington created a sense of vulnerability that was in many respects greater than the mass murder at the World Trade Center and Pentagon. As horrific as September 11 was, it was a discrete crime, whose perpetrators were quickly identified and pursued. The anthrax letters, by contrast, killed only a few people, but remained unsolved.” After an October 2001 bombing raid at a Qaeda camp in Darunta, Afghanistan US forces found 100+ printed, typed, handwritten pages of documents that shed light on Al Qaeda’s early anthrax planning. The Defense Intelligence Agency provided me the documents under the Freedom of Information Act. The documents confirmed that it was Zawahiri’s plan to use established specialists and the cover of universities and charities as cover for weaponizing anthrax. From early on, the evidence suggested that charity is as charity does. 90 of the 100 pages are the photocopies of journal articles and the disease handbook excerpts. 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 Vice President 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 had reason to know 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. As a Detroit Free Press headline explained in 2004, “Unproven weapons claim led to Islamic charity raid in [mid-December] ‘01.” Global Relief Founder (”GRF”) cofounder Rabih Haddad had worked for years for Bin Laden’s Makhtab al-Khidamat, which was headed by Mohammed Islambouli in Peshawar. Benevolence International Foundation (”BIF”) head Arnaout, a Syrian, was at the meeting at which Al Qaeda was founded. GRF and BIF attorneys in unison explained that the US had supported Makthab al-Khidamat in Afghanistan in the 1980s and Bosnia in the 1990s. The 2007 prosecution of the Florida cell members, to include Kifah Waed Jayyousi, an ardent supporter of blind sheik, confirmed that the authorities had long known that Jayyousi “was transferring money intended for Chechen militants through the Global Relief Foundation.” Investigation of the two charities was well underway prior to 9/11, although plagued by lengthy unnecessary delays emanating from headquarters. The 9/11 Commission Report notes that on April 21, 1999, upon weekly dumpster diving, FBI “agents had recovered from BIF’s trash a newspaper article on bioterrorism, in which someone had highlighted sections relating to the United States’ lack of preparedness for a biological attack.” (The article quoted famed Russian bioweaponeer Ken Alibek who was at George Mason University in Falls Church, Virginia.) The FBI had a better relationship with the CIA in the investigation of BIF than with GRF. The 9/11 Commission noted that “[t]he Chicago agents believed the CIA wanted to shield certain information from the FBI because of fears of revealing sources and methods in any potential criminal litigation in the United States.” Chicago agents benefited from the New York Office files on the two charities but the New York FBI office personnel were overwhelmed and working their own leads. The Illinois-based investigations remained an intelligence gathering exercise with no thought given to a criminal prosecution to disrupt the financing of Al Qaeda until after 9/11. Alkifah in Brooklyn became the headquarters of Abdel-Rahman’s supporters in the US. After the anthrax mailings, the Amerithrax investigation naturally considered whether the solution to the mystery had its roots in Brooklyn. Abdel-Rahman was the spiritual leader of both Egyptian Islamic Group and the Egyptian Islamic Jihad and close to Ayman Zawahiri, known to be head of Al Qaeda’s anthrax weaponization project. FISA warrants were initiated immediately after 9/11 but did not prove fruitful. At Fitzgerald’s urging, a criminal investigation of the two charities was opened in October 2001. The 9/11 Commission Report notes that in December 2001, “[t]hese plans were dramatically accelerated when CIA analysts, drawing on intelligence gathered in an unrelated FBI investigation, expressed concerns that GRF could be involved in a plot to attack the United States with weapons of mass destruction (WMD).” On December 14, 2001, the FBI raided the charity offices of Benevolence International Foundation and the Global Relief Foundation. BIF and GRF offices were raided in Illinois — a BIF office in Newark, New Jersey also was searched. Patrick Fitzgerald, the prosecutor who handled the prosecution of Bin Laden earlier that year in the case involving the bombing of the 1998 embassy bombings, was furious that Germs author and New York Times journalist Judy Miller or a colleague called the GRF office in Illinois the night before the search. Authorities had planned on waiting and watching to see how the US charity personnel responded to a search of offices abroad, but their hand was forced when GRF officials in Illinois began shredding documents. 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.” In March 2002, the FBI raided the offices of the Muslim World League at 360 Washington St., the small building that also housed Al-Timimi’s Dar Arqam Center. e. Infiltration of US and UK Biodefense Among the supporters of these militant islamists were people like US scientist Ali Al-Timimi and Pakistan scientist Rauf Ahmad 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 detailed 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. I have uploaded a scanned copy of 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. I also have uploaded a copy of 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. Finally, on the same linked page, there are 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. Ali Al-Timimi was a celebrated speaker with the Islamic Assembly of North America (”IANA”). I drove by the charity’s spin-off, Help The Needy, each day — it was about a mile away from me in Syracuse. 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 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, 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. The group had a spin-off in Syracuse focused on Iraq, called Help The Needy. Ali’s colleague from the small DC-based Society for Adherence to the Sunnah, Idris Palmer, served as Vice-President. Al-Timimi’s speeches are widely distributed on the internet and tend to focus on religious rather than political issues. A district court judge would say that his later speeches tended to favor violent jihad. After 9/11, they were removed from the website of the Center he had founded. The night of 9/11, he got in a heated debate with some colleagues. He said while islamically impermissible, the targeting of civilians was not impermissible where they were used as a shield. Others thought that it was reckless to say that so soon after the 9/11 attack when emotions were so inflamed. 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. He spoke alongside the blind sheik’s son again in 1996, the year Bin Laden issued his Declaration of War against the United States. In July and August 2001, Al-Timimi spoke in Toronto and London alongside “911 imam” Awlaki and unindicted WTC 1993 “unindicted co-conspirator” Bilal Philips. f. The Supporters of Blind Sheik Abdel-Rahman Bin Laden’s 1996 Declaration of War focused not only on dissident Saudi sheik al-Hawali’s imprisonment, but also had invoked the detention of the Egyptian sheik Abdel-Rahman, the so-called “the blind sheik.” Three years earlier, on July 4, 1993, United States Postal employee Ahmed Abdel Sattar had spoken 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. It is known as the Night of Qadr. The letters were sent in connection with the earlier bombing of the World Trade Center and the imprisonment of the blind sheik. 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 “jihad until the release of all prisoners, on top of whom is Abdel Rahman.” Abdel-Rahman’s friend, Ayman Zawahiri, was head of Al Qaeda’s biochemical program. The blind sheik’s son, Mohammed, was on Al Qaeda’s three- member WMD committee. Ayman named his biochem program Zabadi or “Curdled Milk.” Another group committed to Abdel-Rahman’s release was Jemaah Islamiah (”JI”) in Indonesia. JI-member Yazid Sufaat was a member of Al Qaeda. The US-trained Malaysian biochemist Yazid Sufaat met with 9/11 plotters and two hijackers in January 2000. 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. g. EIJ Military Commander's Claims About Ayman's Anthrax Plans 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 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 was 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. After Mabruk’s capture in Baku, Azerbaijan, 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 Montasser 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. That week, and thoughout that year, Al-Zayat was in touch by telephone with US Post Office employee Sattar and Islamic Group leaders 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. Mabruk was in regular contact with Mahmoud Jaballah, who was in Toronto since May 1996. Although Mabruk changed his location every few months, Jaballah kept aware of his whereabouts through his contacts with his brother-in-law Shehata, who was in charge of EIJ’s “special operations.” When Mabruk was arrested and imprisoned in Dagestan along with Zawahiri, Jaballah was told, on December 13, 1996 that Mabruk was “hospitalized.” That is established code for “in jail” and, for example, is the code used by Zawahiri in emails on the same subject. Jaballah raised funds for Mabruk’s release and coordinated these collection efforts with Shehata. Indeed, it was Jaballah’s brother-in-law Shehata who brought the money to Dagestan to arrange for Zawahiri’s and Mabruk’s release. Correspondence between Mabruk and Jaballah in 1997 reports on Jaballah’s recruitment efforts. Mabruk, EIJ’s military commander, was pleased. Jaballah confirmed with Shehata and Mabruk his view of the reliability of the individuals he had recruited. His recruits were affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood. 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. h. Ayman's Concern For PR, Tactics and Religious Sanction 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 in the prosecution of United States postal employee Ahmed Abdel Sattar, the chief aide to Abdel-Rahman.
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.
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. Memos 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.” i. Debate Over Despots and Democracy Al-Timimi had supervised Cairo-based militants writing for the Pittsburgh-based Assirat and then for IANA. Those 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 in Rochester, Minnesota and relayed the proposal. On March 6, 1999, the first press reports appeared quoting the blind sheik’s Cairo lawyer, Montasser al-Zayat, and detainees in a massive trial al-Zayat was defending, stating that Ayman likely was going to use weaponized anthrax against US targets to retaliate against the rendering and detention of the Egyptian militants. On March 9, 1999 following the visit in prison at which the political idea had been proposed, 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. 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 1999 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 has called for the formation of a new political party?” (One of Islamic Group’s founders ; 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, 1999, 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. The most senior Vanguards of Conquest leader in North America was Mahmoud Mahjoub. Mahjoub had known Essam Mohamed Hafez Marzouk who trained the 1998 embassy bombers. Marzouk was one of those picked up in Azerbaijan in August 1998. For a time, Marzouk had lived in Canada in British Columbia. After initially denying he knew Marzouk, Mahjoub testified in 2001 that earlier he had lied and said he knew and had been in contact with him. Canadian Vanguards member Jaballah claimed that Mahjoub was in regular contact with Marzouk. 87 of the 107 defendants in the 1999 “Returnees from Albania” trial case were Vanguards members. Both Mahjoub and Marzouk were convicted in absentia and sentenced to 15 years. The group swore that it would seek revenge in retaliation for the convictions. According to the CSIS, in the years leading up to his arrest, Mahjoub had shown signs of security consciousness. One time in December 1998, “he looked over his shoulder on three (3) occasions for no apparent reason, after making a call from a public pay phone.” He would call from pay phones rather than his residence. In May 1999, “he was observed looking back on several occasions while walking through a shopping centre parking area prior to boarding a bus.” In late January 2000, Mahjoub told an associate that he preferred to talk face to face when an associated asked about news. He said that could not talk about the matter because of “Moukhabarat” (secret services). When asked whether he meant military or civilian, Mahjoub said “both.” Just because you are paranoid does not mean you are not under surveillance. j. The Canadian Connection and February 2001 PDB About Anthrax 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 Mahjoub. Mahjoub 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 of weapons of mass destruction. In February 2001, after the anthrax threat related to Mahjoub, 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. The PDB likely will be found to address the detention of Marzouk, his status in the Vanguards of Conquest/Egyptian Islamic Jihad, and threats of revenge relating to the conviction and sentencing of senior militant Egyptians. 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. The Los Angeles Times reported that on September 16 the Sunday night after Sept. 11, 2001 — and two days before first mailing, Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson gathered an urgent meeting of health officials and leading scientists. “Tommy Thompson was really, really concerned that something could happen,” Dr. Donald A. “D.A.” Henderson, told the Los Angeles Times. “There was intelligence information coming through and some chatter coming through, suggesting there was going to be a second event, that the second event could very likely be a biologic event.” Reports had surfaced about Atta’s and Moussaoui’s inquiries about cropdusters. On March 14, 2001, former USAMRIID deputy commander 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. In mid-December 2001, the US arrested US-based Al Qaeda biochem operative Ali Al-Marri, who had arrived on September 10, 2001 and was nominally a student living in Macomb, Illinois. Al-Marri had lived in Macomb the previous summer and had traveled to New York City to join with UK operative Dhiren Barot to case NYC helicopters and financial institutions. Authorities had learned of calls he made to KSM’s assistant al-Hawsawi from Illinois. The key to the Amerithrax solution possibly hinged on where he had his computer sent after casing NYC locations. He had the imam at the local mosque store the computer in his basement and then ship it to Washington. In January 2002, an FBI official told the Wall Street Journal, “We’ve done over 300 interviews at places we consider really critical. I can tell you categorically that we’ve given a lot of people shakes, [but] there was nothing to it.” Beginning that month, Ali Al-Timimi was on GMU staff and paid $70,000 a year. Sometime later that year, officials apparently first 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 in Afghanistan. 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. As he described to ABCNEWS, Dr. Alibek and other scientists in March 2002 took lie detector tests. He had to answer questions including “Did you do it?” and “Do you know who did it?” Alibek reports that he passed the test. Although Dr. Alibek offered his services to the FBI Director in a letter, the response was that they already had a large group working on it. 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. Dr. Alibek and Dr. Bailey had both worked for Battelle as consultants. An intense concern over such leaks continued into the Spring in charity investigations involving a March 2002 of the Saar network. Even the US Attorney working on the investigation and his team were under investigation. 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. 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.” 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). After meeting with "9/11 imam" Anwar Aulaqi to discuss the idea, 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. Bailey 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 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 an 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 committee with Egyptian Midhat Mursi, was captured in Quetta, Pakistan. 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 had 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 Ramzi 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, Al-Baluchi, of MIT-graduate Aafia Siddiqui. Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali (aka Ammar al-Baluchi) is a cousin of 9/11 plotter Ramzi Yousef and nephew of KSM. In 2000-2001, along with KSM’s assistant Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi, Al-Baluchi facilitated the hijackers travel in transiting the UAE from Pakistan. He would send them money transfers after they were in the US. US biochem operative Al-Marri was in contact in August, September and October 2001 with Al-Hawsawi, who in August was in UAE and then after 9/11 was back in Pakistan. In 2002-2003, back in Pakistan, al-Baluchi worked with operative Majid Khan, a Maryland resident. He married Aafia Siddiqui shortly before being captured in Pakistan in the Spring of 2003. An Assistant United States Attorney ("AUSA") would say in the prosecution related to a plot involving Majid Khan that Aafia Siddiqui was willing to participate in an anthrax attack if asked. By reason of her relationship with 9/11 plotter KSM and KSM’s nephew al-Baluchi, Aafia was connected to both al-Hawsawi’s laptop with the anthrax spraydrying documents and Al-Marri. l. The Investigation Moves Forward In Northern Virginia, GMU microbiologist Ali Al-Timimi had been questioned by the FBI agent and Secret Service agent in connection with WTC 1993. Al-Timimi was 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 deputy commander 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. Ali spoke alongside the blind sheik’s son, Mohammed Abdel-Rahman at IANA conference in 1993 and 1996. On February 26, 2003, authorities searched Ali Al-Timimi’s townhouse. 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.” That same morning, they arrested Sami al-Hussayen, who funnelled money from Saudi Arabia to the Islamic Assembly of North America and maintained websites for radical Saudi Sheiks who inspired Bin Laden. Sami al-Hussayen was in regular contact with Sheik al-Hawali. At the same time they searched Ali Al-Timimi’s townhouse, in Virginia, and arrested Sami al-Hussayen, the FBI searched the home of two PhD level food production experts. One was in Moscow, Idaho and one was in Syracuse, New York. 100 agents came to Syracuse, NY that day as part of “Operation Imminent Horizon” and simultaneously interviewed 150 people. The animal geneticist and food researcher in Syracuse, Ismail Diab, mixed with silica in making animal feedstuffs. Dr. Diab was not questioned. He had been in Syracuse in Fall 2001 but then returned to Pullman, Washington until the FBI began investigating there in August 2002. At the same time, the FBI interviewed and searched the apartment of Sami’s friend Nabil Al-Baloushi, a doctoral student in food engineering at the University of Idaho. His PhD thesis in 2003 on drying had 350 pages of drying coefficients. Authorities trumpeted checks years earlier exchanged between the Syracuse, NY charity with Global Relief Foundation and Benevolence International Foundation as if important evidence. Help The Needy was a dba and spinoff of affiliated with the Ann Arbor-based Islamic Assembly of North America. Sami was President of the Muslim Student Association and Nabil Albaloushi was Vice-President. Nabil's 350-page thesis was filled with charts relating to drying coefficients that may have made the FBI think that they had found someone who was cutting edge in drying technique. Sometimes a french fry is just a french fry. The fact that Battelle ran the nearby Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (”PNNL”), which granted access to facilities to Washington State University students and shared library facilities with WSU, may have made the FBI even more peevish about access to cutting-edge drying or aerosol technology. The Pakistan government, at a press conference, claimed that Khalid Mohammed, Al Qaeda’s #3, was captured on March 1, 2003. According to the Pakistan government officals, Mohammed allegedly was hiding in the home of the Pakistani bacteriologist Dr. Abdul Qadoos Khan. The family of the bacteriologist claimed that KSM was not there at the home upon the early March raid but had been captured at a different location. That claim is also made by an informed Pakistani journalist, in the 2007 book Pakistan Frontline, and sourced to an unnamed Pakistan police officer involved in the capture. The author reports that KSM was actually picked up two weeks earlier but authorities wanted time to catch accomplices planning attacks. In April 2008, Dr. Alibek noted that has not seen anyone from the FBI for the last 6 years. He reports that has lectured for many government officials on these 2001-anthrax "issues" several times years ago. He says he can just assume there were some of them from FBI but that was the extent of his contact. Dr. Alibek assures me that he has never been asked to provide with his handwriting. Dr. Alibek recalls offered his help to them about 4 or 5 years ago -- and published reports at the time confirm he did in 2002. He was thanked and decided to leave the area of biodefense afterwards. He no longer is at George Mason University. Now he is working in the field of pharmaceutical development and spends his time developing and manufacturing cardio and cancer drugs. In contrast to Dr. Alibek's responses, in December 2007, Dr. Bailey referred me to University counsel even on the simple question of confirming Al-Timimi's desk was not much more than 15 feet away by January 2002. University counsel cited student privacy in refusing to provide any information. m. Evidence Continues To Accumulate 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.” Al-Timimi and Bin Laden's sheik al-Hawali spoke by telephone about how they might help in connection with Moussaoui's defense. In early March 2003, a man named Saud Memon, who was in the textiles business, was captured in South Africa. He had fled here after Daniel Pearl was killed on his property. Memon reportedly gave information on Al Qaeda’s anthrax work that he allegedly helping to finance. He reportedly was associated with Harakat ul-Mujahedeen Al-Almi and was one of the trustees of Al-Akhtar Trust International, a charity the United States Treasury alleges was tied to al Qaeda and the Taliban. After four years in detention at an undisclosed location, he was left in front of his home in Karachi on April 28, 2007 in a very poor health and died a couple weeks later. The cause of death was reported to be meningitis and tuberculosis. Memon’s lawyer said Memon was in the custody of Pakistani intelligence officials. Memon’s name is not on the final official lists of Guantanamo captives issued on May 15, 2006. The Wall Street Journal also quoted an unnamed Pakistani official who said that Memon for a time was held in the American Bagram Theater detention facility. 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 At The Center Of The Storm 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. President Bush had first nicknamed him “Germ Boy” after his office in the Spring 2001 took charge of the issue of the possibility of an WMD attack using biological weapons. Libby 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 (but unweaponized) 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. It was the one that got massive attention because of intentional leaks by at least one key federal official who headed the criminal division at the US Attorney’s office in the District of Columbia. The man had shifted over from the CIA in late September 2001. His daughter later represented Al-Timimi pro bono. 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.” By late November 2003, agents had spent 231,000 hours. 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-Qaeda 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. Palestinian Marwan Jabour had gone to Pakistan as a student. In May 2004, he 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, 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 the 2004 statement by the Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet to the 911 Commission, 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. The first inhalational anthrax victim in New York City, Kathy Nguyen, had died at Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan, where a former BIF employed worked as an intern and then as a resident in internal medicine. She worked in the stockroom of a nearby hospital that was a subsidiary of Lenox Hill. In late June 2004, when US authorities much later charged the doctor with immigration violations, he was represented by Stanley L. Cohen, the partner of the blind sheik’s Abdel-Rahman’s lawyer Lynne Stewart. Faraj lived in Brooklyn where he had moved in 1999 from Falls Church. Others represented by Attorney Cohen have included Falls Church, VA Hamas political leader Abu Marzouk and Virginia Paintball leader and Al-Timimi friend, Royer. 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 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.
In a 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 hyped intentional leaks about Hatfill distracted the world’s press attention. A federal district court judge hearing a civil rights claim against the Department of Justice confirms there is not a “scintilla of evidence” against Hatfill. The CIA, however, continued to work 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.Some 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 -- -- intended to deter invasion of Afghanistan.. 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. n. Microbial Forensics Pinpoint A Perp 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. 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. An inverted plasmid and the fact that the mailed anthrax was a mixture of two samples may help authorities pinpoint the source. 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. The product had electrostatic charge — and indeed perhaps even a unipolar charge added. But according to a presentation reportedly made by a scientist who examined the anthrax for the FBI,, Dorothy Smalls, an additive was apparently used to dampen Vander waals forces. One confounding aspect of the debate on the sophistication of the product is that often the speaker refers generally to “electrical charges” — without distinguishing between electrostatic charges and Vander waals forces In contrast, though not on the face inconsistently, 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.” Harvard professor Matthew Meselson consulted with the author on the article. o. Mohammed Al-Islambouli Finally Surfaces As Story Begins To Break 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 Islamic 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 continue its holy war against the Egyptian government. In early 1993 he moved 100 miles west to Jalabad, Afghanistan from Peshawar upon a crackdown on Arab fighters. In 1993, the US and Egypt was putting pressure on ISI to deal with the same militants everyone had welcomed repelling the Soviets from Afghanistan. He was sentenced to death in absentia in 1993. 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 in retaliation for the detention of the blind sheik Abdel-Rahman. According to the PDB, someone from Saudi Arabia was expected 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 late March 2007, prominent islamist attorney Mamdouh Ismail was arrested. Egyptian authorities accuse Mamdouh 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. Al-Nashar had been a student in North Carolina in 2000 where Al-Timimi’s group had a branch. 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 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 November 2007, the Wall Street Journal reported:
p. Motive: The Need To See Things Through Your Adversary's Eyes 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. A former leader of an armed Islamic group in Libya, Numan Bin Uthman, recently has written an open letter Ayman al-Zawahiri indirectly revealing that the purpose of the anthrax in the first place was deterrence against the invasion of Afghanistan. Bin Uthman, alluding to a Summer 2000 meeting over several days in Kandahar at which these issues discussed, argued that that the strategy of using nonconventional WMD to deter an invasion of Afghanistan was a misguided and failed strategy. Use of such weapons, he explained to Zawahiri, merely contributed to both the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq. q. The Documentary Clues That Were Overlooked By The Media Although investigation was moving forward, the press remained seriously misdirected because of propaganda by those inside and outside of the investigation. Professor Francis Boyle was the first to raise a US “bioevangelist” theory of the anthrax mailings in the press. Law Professor Boyle represented Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1993 and over the years continued to serve as its counsel. Boyle has worked closely with one of the lawyers for blind sheik Abdel-Rahman in seeking the impeachment of President Bush. He has acted as legal advisor to the PLO. He wrote a book advancing the theory and continued to press the theory in the press over the next half decade using a paid public relations person. In 2002 and 2003, the theory was fueled by leaks by the lead criminal prosecutor, whose law firm online biography indicates he was born in Haifa in 1948. He was head of the criminal division at the US Attorney’s Office in the District of Columbia. The attorney moved over from the CIA in late September 2001. He received regular briefings on the investigation and was the one who would have oversaw presentment of any indictment in Amerithrax to a grand jury. 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 As 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. In November 2007, in a speech, FBI Director Robert Mueller pointed specifically to the problem of spies at universities and access to pre-patent, pre-classification biochemistry information. 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.” It was if the sender was asking the same scripted and approved question the assassin posed to Massoud, leader of the Northern Alliance, just before the bomb hidden in his camera detonated: “How will you deal with the Osama bin Laden issue when you are in power and what do you see as the solution to this issue?” The same question can now be asked of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John McCain. But let’s start by asking them: who do they think mailed the anthrax? II. Means : Al Qaeda's Biochem Program Codenamed Yogurt a. Codename "Swift Knight": Bin Laden's Plan With Ibn Khattab To Use Charities And Infiltrators In Creating Biological Weapons The surest indication that the Administration credited the claims concerning Al Qaeda's intention to weaponize anthrax for the purpose of using it as a weapon is that Vice President Cheney and his staff allegedly knew to take Cipro on 9/11. That was a full week before the first anthrax letter was mailed. An unclassified CIA report in January 2003 vaguely summarized the information available from open sources: "A senior Bin Ladin associated on trial in Egypt in 1999 claimed his group had chemical and biological weapons. Documents and equipment recovered from al-Qa'ida facilities in Afghanistan show that Bin Ladin has a more sophisticated biological weapons research program than previously discovered." Al Qaeda's interest in biological or chemical weapons was first publicly indicated by United States District Court Judge Kevin Duffy, who spoke of the planned use of cyanide in sentencing the defendants responsible for the first attempt to bring down the World Trade Center in 1993. The plotters hoped that one tower would topple into the second. Under one view of the evidence, cyanide gas released in the explosion then would consume the trapped occupants of the other tower. (Others credibly argue that this interpretation is mistaken.) Tenet in his May 2007 In the Center of the Storm wrote:
In Sudan, bin Laden sought to bring Agiza's Vanguards of Conquest faction and Saif Adel's EIJ faction -- both of which had splintered off from Zawahiri's leadership. The Vanguards of Conquest initially had been set up by Ahmed Hussain Agiza, a physician, and split off from Zawahiri. Agiza had a falling out with Zawahiri in 1993 over the arrest of 800 Vanguards members in Egypt. By 1995, Zawahiri was serving as the group's spokesman in connection with the attempted assassination of President Mubarak in Ethiopia. In 1997, the US State Department named Zawahiri as leader of the Vanguards of Conquest group. (Agiza was extradited from Sweden in December 2001). At the same time of their developing interest in anthrax, the pro-Bin Laden elements diversified the targets. The group would no longer limit its tactics to the blowing up of installations. They launched joint action with other groups and organizations, both local groups and others operating outside their countries. The group has maintained the goal of seizing power in Egypt since the coup planned by Jihad in 1981 despite the Egyptian government's success in cracking down on the group. Upon the merger in 1998, the most senior planners in Al Qaeda relating to tactics and biological weapons were Egyptian Islamic Jihad, to include Ayman Zawahiri, Mohammed Atef, and Midhat Mursi aka Abu Khabab. Zawahiri is the real "brains" behind Al Qaeda, not Bin Laden. Egyptian Abu Yasir -- known as Taha --the blind sheik's successor as leader of the Islamic Group, also was a senior member of Al Qaeda. Taha signed the 1998 statement declaring war on the United States along with Bin Laden and Zawahiri. Taha had not conferred with the Islamic Group shura council. Moreover, Zawahiri apparently had not obtained the approval of EIJ's shura council to their great consternation. While the US government views Al Qaeda and the Egyptian Islamic Jihad as having merged in 1998, they have essentially been the same organization, with the merger having occurred some years before that. Formerly the head of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, Zawahiri assumed the #2 position after Bin Laden upon a merger of some of Islamic Jihad into Al Qaeda. The Vanguards of Conquest called creation of the front "a step forward and in the right direction," but urged Bin Laden to "expand its membership to include other tendencies on the scene.. [and] all colors of the fundamentalist movement wishing to join such alliance in the Arab and Islamic worlds." In a statement in February 1998, the Vanguards of Conquest said that Muslims should unite against the ``real enemies of Islam,'' the United States and Israel. ``The time has come to coordinate..to stop our knee-jerk reactions and killing those who are not the enemy..we have to think strategically,'' the group said.Under one view, EIJ by this time was Vanguards of Conquest by another name -- with Zawahiri its leader and spokesperson. The Egyptian government claimed that Yasser al- Sirri managed and financed the group Vanguards of Conquest, also known as the New Jihad, from his London home while on the public dole. Zawahiri's wrath against the United States sharpened in 1998 upon the extradition to Egypt of the islamic jihad members from Albania. The trial of the 107 defendants in the "Albanian returnees" in 1999 was the biggest trial of militant islamists since the assassination of Sadat. Zawahiri was sentenced to death in absentia, as was his brother, Muhammad. Muhammad was responsible for Jihad's military wing and was a member of its shura council. Muhammad Zawahiri was in charge of contacts with EIJ leaders inside Egypt and traveled with Ayman. A 1998 Defense Intelligence Agency document produced to Judicial Watch four years ago confirms Bin Laden’s plans to penetrate US biodefense. It describes OBL’s biological aspirations in association with the late Arab Chechen fighter Ibn Khattab. The means by which a worldwide caliphate was to be established was by terror, “latent penetration,” and control over nuclear and biological weapons. After 9/11, Ibn Khattab was killed by a poison letter. The head of judicial watch interpets “latent penetration” as referring to sleeper cells, which is a sound interpretation. But I think of it as referring more precisely to infiltration. The infiltration that occurred, as had occurred with Bin Laden’s former head of security and intelligence, Ali Mohammed, was pretty obvious, at least with the benefit of hindsight. Six years after the anthrax mailings, perhaps the suppression of information in Amerithrax may be due in part to a profound embarrassment and fear of legal liability, rather than due merely to the confidentiality required in a criminal and national security investigation. It’s hard to tell. The head of Judicial Watch explained:
He explained that the typed document was derived from handwritten documents obtained through a classified intelligence project with the unclassified nickname “Swift Knight.” According to the report, the documents were written during the first two weeks of October 1998.” The document stated in part:
I believe NFI, which appears in parentheses, after the phrase “latent penetration,” may be World Bank-speak spoken by Wadi al Hagi standing for non-conventional financial intermediary or NGO, non-governmental organization. He uses the same “nfi” designation in his correspondence from that time period. It is merely an additional confirmation Bin Laden planned to use the infrastructure and cover of charities in seeking to weaponize anthrax. On December 18, 1998, the Egyptian Islamic Jihad and Vanguards of Conquest had issued a new threat, stating in part that the group will not be "satisfied with the empty statements of condemnation that we are used to hearing from [Arab] regimes. We say it loud and clear that we will retaliate for what is happening to the sons of our nation in Iraq. For the crimes committed by the US against our Islamic nation will not pass without punishment." The statement was signed by the Vanguards of Conquest's secretary general, Abduallah Mansour. It was published in the al-Hayat on December 19, 1998. b. The March 1999 Public Announcement Of Zawahiri's Quest To Weaponize Anthrax In 1999, Zawahiri created some computer documents describing his biological and chemical program, which he code-named "Curdled Milk." His name "Zabadi" translates to "curdled milk" or yogurt. Yogurt is a custard like food with a tart flavor, prepared from milk curdled by bacteria. It's made using a spraydryer. Like the FBI, Zawahiri has a penchant for suggestive code names, which sort of defeats the purpose. (Indeed, the US Army reportedly used Zabadi and "bad cow" as code names for Iraqi soldiers upon invading Iraq.) The project apparently included work on a pesticide/nerve agent that used a chemical to increase absorption (and was tested on rabbits and dogs). In addition to having acquired anthrax, Al Qaeda allegedly obtained salmonella bacterium through the mail from countries of the former Soviet Union and botulinum toxin from the Czech Republic. Was Ayman's code-name al-Zabadi, meaning yogurt, or al-Zubaidy, referring to the inventor of an aerosol spraying device used in adapting cropdusters? I have relied on a landmark article in the Wall Street Journal about the documents on Ayman's computer in suggesting that Zabadi means "yogurt." On February 1, 1999, Ayman wrote this email:
Later that month, a vitriolic message, 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. Egyptians, Algerians and Tunisians, all veterans of the Afghan war, were part of a group calling itself the Islamic Army of Aden and Abyan. Investigators considered a possible connection to the attempted extradition to Yemen of the London-based Egyptian islamic preacher Abu Hamza al-Masri. At a news conference on January 20, 1999, Abu Hamza, who was the leader of the London-based Supporters of Sharia (Islamic law), had warned that westerners should leave Yemen. Both his son and stepson were being held by authorities. Abu Hamzi al-Masri would later be arrested in May 2004. The anthrax threat, however, was a bluff. Ayman was still researching the subject. Richard Clarke once said in testimony, "All too often we ignore open sources. If we don't pay for it or steal it, we don't believe it." There is a wealth of public information about the Vanguards of Conquest and Zawahiri's quest to weaponize anthrax. On March 6, 1999, the report first appeared about Al Qaeda and anthrax in Arabic newspapers in connection with the confession of a senior Egyptian islamist militant, Ahmad al-Najjar. Al-Najjar had served and then betrayed Zawahiri in Yemen. Al-Najjar also revealed the EIJ's wing in the United States centered on Ali Mohammed. According to press reports and detainees in 1999, Bin Laden reportedly purchased anthrax from a supplier in North Korea. (Perhaps it was not pathogenic). The Moro Islamic Liberation Front ("MILF"), a Southeast Asia radical group associated with and funded by Bin Laden, arranged for the purchase. Al Qaeda's anthrax researcher Yazid Sufaat was a member of JI (Islamic Group). The MILF, the largest Islamic separatist group in the Philippines with 15,000 members, is linked to al-Qaeda with members who have trained in Afghanistan. The MILF has ties with, and has trained, members of the JI (Islamic Group). According to the Ambassador of the Republic of the Philippines to the United States, the MILF (like the Abu Sayyaf) had received funds from a purported charity, the International Islamic Relief Organization ("IIRO") along with the Benevolence International Corporation. The charity was established in the Philippines by Osama bin Laden's brother-in-law, Mohammed Jamal Khalifa. At the trial of the Albanian returnees, an Egyptian journalist with the newspaper al-Hayat, Salah, spoke with Ahmad Mabruk. Mabruk was among 100+ defendants in the 1999 Egyptian terrorism trial and was Zawahiri's confidante and right-hand man. Mabruk had been imprisoned for 6 months in Russia with Zawahiri shortly before the launch of Zawahiri's anthrax program. (Mabruk, who was the head of Egyptian Islamic Jihad's military operations, told Al-Hayat the plan was on a computer disk confiscated from him during his arrest by the CIA in Azerbaijan. The disk later was reportedly handed over to the Egyptian authorities. Mabruk said he assumed that, upon learning of his arrest, Bin Laden and Zawahiri would change the dates and locations for the attacks outlined in the plan. Mabruk revealed that Bin Laden and al-Zawahiri had compiled a list of 100 targets worldwide that were linked to United States or Israel. According to Road to Al Qaeda, by prominent Islamist lawyer Al-Zayat, the disc contained "the names of group members all over the world. The computer revealed to the authorities the location of group members living overseas, including new members that were not known to the Egyptian authorities, as well as some information about Al-Qaeda members." Al-Zayat, who represented some of the defendants, said in 1999 that Bin Laden's organization had biological and chemical weapons and would likely use such weapons against the United States. Al Zayat is Zawahiri's friend and the lawyer for the blind sheik. In the Spring and Fall of 1999, authorities intercepted telephone conversations he had with the blind sheik's liaison Sattar. Al Zayat formerly shared a law office with the head of Egyptian Islamic Jihad's Civilian Branch relating to Special Operations, Shehata, and in 1999 maintained an e-mail correspondence with the Egyptian Islamic Group leader, Taha | ||||||||||||||||