* In Spring 2001, Nawaf Al-Hazmi Associated With Both Anwar Awlaki And Ali Al-Timimi, Who Shared A Suite With The Ames Researchers
Posted by Lew Weinstein on January 27, 2012
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Posted by Lew Weinstein on January 27, 2012
This entry was posted on January 27, 2012 at 5:34 am and is filed under Uncategorized. Tagged: *** 2001 anthrax attacks, *** Amerithrax, *** FBI anthrax investigation, al Qaeda and anthrax, Ali al-Timimi, Ames Researchers, Anwar Awlaki, Nawaf Al-Hazmi. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
DXer said
U.S. Official: Al-Awlaki Tried to Use WMDs to Attack Westerners
Published September 30, 2011
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/09/30/us-official-al-awlaki-tried-to-use-wmds-to-attack-westerners/#ixzz2KdcpRGxr
Anwar al-Awlaki, the U.S.-born cleric killed Friday, sought to use weapons of mass destruction to attack westerners in his role as chief of external operations for Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, according to a senior U.S. official.
The terror leader specifically sought to use poisons including cyanide and ricin, as he planned and directed attacks against the United States from his foreign base, the official said.
Yazid has publicly said that anthrax is not his favorite bug. It is good only for sabotaging, not to kill. He would rather use a bacteria or virus that really hits you and gives you one or two hours before you die.
Al Qaeda anthrax lab tech says he had been part of Malaysian Armed Forces biological weapons program
http://www.freemalaysiakini2.com/?p=21471
But Yazid said that he was in fact “successful” in developing some “bugs”, but the laboratory was destroyed when the Northern Alliance forces bombed Kandahar.
“I can still find (anthrax) if I want to, but what for? It has no commercial value. Anthrax is only good for sabotaging, it cannot kill.
“It’s not my favourite bug, anyway. I’d rather use bacteria or virus yang betul-betul(really) hit you and give you one or two hours before you die.
DXer said
This 2004 Washington post article discussing ricin refers to Yazid Sufaat as a trainer at the Derunta camp, near the eastern Afghan city of Jalabad. I hope Chomel exercised some control over the shopping list for when Yazid went to buy groceries for their cafeteria.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2159-2004May4_2.html
“The technology for making it is low enough that literally any crank working in his basement can create a ricin preparation of some sort,” said Jonathan Tucker, a biological weapons expert with the Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies. “You can’t do that as easily with anthrax.”
The raw materials for ricin are cheap. The toxin naturally exists in castor beans, which grow wild in many parts of the world, including the United States, where the plants are prized by gardeners and landscapers as an ornamental shrub. Brazil, China and India grow industrial quantities of the colorful, plump beans to make castor oil, which is used in products ranging from laxatives and shampoos to lubricating oils. A single castor bean, if chewed, contains enough ricin to kill a child. Al Qaeda’s interest in ricin dates to at least the late 1990s. Two terrorism manuals seized from al Qaeda operatives in several locations contain detailed instructions on making and using the toxin. One was found by British journalists in November 2001 at a deserted al Qaeda safe house in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan. Another was titled, “The Encyclopedia of Jihad,” and commends ricin as one of the “poisons that the holy warrior can prepare and use without endangering his health.”
Training From Al Qaeda
Many of the details of Benchellali’s ricin experiments — including how much he made and how he intended to use it — remain unknown. But after a year-long probe, French investigators have pieced together a chronology of his activities. This account is based on interviews with investigators, a family member, neighbors and French journalists, and the transcripts of police interrogations of Benchellali.
The son of an Algerian-born Muslim cleric, Benchellali grew up in a gritty Lyon suburb, Les Minguettes, notable for its thickets of towering public housing complexes and 30-percent unemployment rate. As a boy, he witnessed his father’s confrontations with the French government over laws banning Islamic head coverings for school girls. Although he developed a fondness for nice cars and clothes, he saw few opportunities for obtaining them, or for gaining full acceptance as a Muslim and Arab in France, according to family acquaintances.
“As an Arab living here, the only area of society where you are truly accepted is religion,” said Mustapha Kessous, a Lyon journalist and radio talk-show host who has written extensively about the Benchellali family and Lyon’s immigrant community. “To anyone meeting you on the street, you are a Muslim and an Arab first, not a Frenchman.”
Police are uncertain how Benchellali first connected with al Qaeda. In the late 1990s, according to U.S. and French intelligence officials, he traveled to Afghanistan to train in one of several camps that the group established for foreign recruits. On one of his later trips he was accompanied by his younger brother Mourad, who eventually was captured by U.S. forces in Afghanistan and is now being held at the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
U.S. officials believe Menad Benchellali may have received advanced training at al Qaeda’s Derunta camp, near the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad. The camp housed one of al Qaeda’s labs and a school for a select group of recruits who studied the use of toxic chemicals and biological toxins, including ricin, U.S. intelligence sources say.
The instructors included at least two scientists: Yazid Sufaat, a U.S.-trained biochemist who is now in custody in Malaysia, and a Pakistani microbiologist who U.S. officials have declined to name. At Derunta, U.S. forces discovered castor oil and equipment for making ricin. “There is a lot of evidence of crude attempts to produce ricin,” at Derunta, said a U.S. intelligence official who spoke on condition he not be identified by name.
After al Qaeda lost Afghan camps to invading U.S. forces in late 2001, Benchellali’s chemical training shifted to the Pankisi Gorge, a lawless area in Georgia that borders Chechnya, the separatist republic in southern Russia, French authorities say. The existence of makeshift laboratories and training camps in the mountainous region has been documented by the Georgian government, which moved to close the camps early last year. Benchellali told police he had planned to join the Chechen rebels but was thwarted in his attempts to cross into Russia. He decided instead to return to France, taking with him new skills and a network of contacts spanning most of Western Europe.
DXer said
American cleric used more than 60 email accounts to reach followers, including Hasan
By Catherine Herridge, with additional reporting by Pamela Browne, Gregory Johnson and Cyd Upson
Published June 15, 2012
FoxNews.com
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/06/14/al-awlaki-used-dozens-email-accounts-to-reach-followers-including-hasan/#ixzz1y6FBHstR
In the 2011 Senate Homeland Security Committee investigation of the Fort Hood massacre, the FBI came under criticism for failing to act as an “effective interagency information sharing and operation coordination mechanism.”
In other words, at times the FBI failed to share key information with intelligence analysts under their supervision.
Slotter, who now works at a private international investigative firm specializing in cyber crime and digital forensics, characterized the number as “…Thousands of emails…over a three year period, tens of thousands.”
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This exchange was read into the British court record. Here in this exchange from January 2010, Awlaki was clearly interested in Rajib Karim who was a British Airways employee.
Awlaki :
“We search for such men and women. I pray you are one of them, dear brother. I was pleased when your brother conveyed from you Salaams to myself and was excited by hearing of your profession.”
“How much access do you have to airports?”
“What information do you have on the limitations and crack in present airport security systems?”
“What procedure would travelers from the newly listed countries have to go through?”
“What ways can you help us based on what you know of your job and our objective?”
“For security reasons, I prefer to communicate with you through your brother’s account. However, please maintain the other account by keeping it open just in case I need to contact you there. Awaiting your answer.”
While the 19 emails between al-Awlaki and Army Major Nidal Hasan appear much less specific, Senator Susan Collins said the mere contact between an Army officer and a known extremist should have led to more action by federal and military investigators.
“I have read the e-mails and they should have given rise to alarm,” Collins said. “Just the fact that a member of our Armed Forces was communicating at all with a radical cleric in Yemen should have given rise to an investigation that was thorough and complete.”
Army Staff Sgt. Manning, who was shot six times at Fort Hood, told Fox that he heard Major Hasan scream “allah akbar.” Manning spoke exclusively to Fox Files about the massacre. At one point, Manning said he pretended to be dead fearing the shooter would try to finish him off if he appeared only wounded.
“You could lose your security clearance in the Army for having bad credit and be kicked out of the army. But you can’t lose your security clearance for talking to uh, a member of Al Qaeda, through e-mail. I mean, it doesn’t make any sense.”
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/06/14/al-awlaki-used-dozens-email-accounts-to-reach-followers-including-hasan/#ixzz1y6F4vTFW
DXer said
U.S. News
Al-Qaida magazine Inspire resurfaces
Awlaki is saying that women and children should not be deliberately attacked with bioweapons but if they’re among ‘”combatants,” it is “allowed for Muslims to attack them.”
He cites religious scholars in support.
I previously relied on a Princeton’s professor Bernard Lewis’ discussion of the hadiths — and pointed to those hadiths that forbid use of a poison or bioweapon that kills a child or women, or even that injures livestock or crops.
I’ve suggested that Dr. Ayman is doomed to a harsh judgment in another world — if you believe in a God.
And Yazid is particularly defensive on the issue and might be in crisis if he ever doubted himself. One of the reasons Yazid went public IMO is to urge that an aerosol release would not violate the hadiths.
But Anwar frequented prostitutes and so personally I would get my interpretation of the old book by someone else.
I suspect both the anthrax mailier and Dr. Ayman are heedful of the correct application of the hadiths even as they defer to the interpretation that they find convenient and supports what they are doing.
Once I was talking to my friend who grew up down the street from Dr. Ayman, whose brother was the chief Egyptian prosecutor, and the first sentence out of his mouth — after “who’s helping you” — related to the hadiths.
Read more: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2012/05/03/Al-Qaida-magazine-Inspire-resurfaces/UPI-38241336053426/#ixzz1tpCIqmDb
DXer said
http://www.securitymanagement.com/news/morning-security-brief-bin-laden-documents-published-inspire-magazine-published-sensitive-h5n1-
Inspire magazine’s latest issue calls for chemical and biological attacks against “countries at war with Muslims.” A five-page feature, written by cleric Anwar Al-Awlaki, says that the use of chemical and biological weapons against population centers is “allowed and strongly recommended due to the effect on the enemy.”
DXer said
Comment: Ali Al-TImimi, the scientist coordinating with the 911 imam, worked at George Mason and shared a suite with the scientist billed as the leading anthrax bioweaponeer in the world. No GMU researcher ever publicly addresses the fact (although most are responsive to questions privately). Thus, I find everything coming out of GMU (such as the article below) to be highly ironic.
Rather than these GMU academics writing about intangible obstacles to proliferation, maybe one of them should interview FBI scientist Jason Bannan, who was the collection scientist at the Bacteriology Division at the time that Ali Al-TImimi had unrestricted access to the ATCC collection. They — or GAO — and ask Jason what vetting was done by ATCC. Access, according to a whistlebower, included the confidential patent repository. Alibek’s company worked with virulent Ames in doing his DARPA-funded research. His co-founder was the former acting USAMRIID Commander, a prolific Ames researcher if having his name on the publication is to serve as the guide.
I thought Corinne’s GMU 2007 thesis on the general subject was fascinating. Peter L., of the DOD, who taught at GMU was also excellent in understanding these issues.
Under the logic of this Assistant Professor’s article, abstracted here, Ali could not have done harm because any actions he took would have had to be clandestine.
Well, access to the pathogen is key — right? And access to the shared GMU computers in the lab gave access to know-how, eh? And as for work on premises, Corinne gave examples of missing equipment and clandestine use of equipment at DIscovery Hall itself, right?
But more importantly, having processing done elsewhere is a simple matter.
As for the equipment and location needed, we’ve heard often that the FBI says not much is needed.
As for bureaucratic constraints, ironically, it doesn’t get much more bureaucratic and well-organized than Al Qaeda in 2001.
How did bureaucratic constraints prevent Rauf Ahmad from sharing with Ayman Zawahiri the processing tips he says he learned from attendees at the Porton Down conference? How did bureaucratic constraints impede Yazid Sufaat from procuring and moving equipment with the likes of his many helpmates, to include KSM.
Spring 2012, Vol. 36, No. 4, Pages 80-114
Posted Online April 10, 2012.
(doi:10.1162/ISEC_a_00077)
© 2012 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Barriers to Bioweapons: Intangible Obstacles to Proliferation
Sonia Ben Ouagrham-Gormley
Sonia Ben Ouagrham-Gormley is Assistant Professor in the Biodefense Program at George Mason University.
Although the issue of knowledge diffusion has been at the heart of nonproliferation research and policies, no study in the political science field has thus far systematically identified the mechanisms that allow the acquisition and efficient use of specialized knowledge related to bioweapons. This analytical gap has led to the commonly held belief that bioweapons knowledge is easily transferable. Studies of past weapons programs, including the former U.S. and Soviet bioweapons programs, show that gathering the relevant information and expertise required to produce a weapon is not sufficient to guarantee success. The success of a bioweapons program is dependent on intangible factors, such as work organization, program management, structural organization, and social environment, which can enhance the advancement of a program or create obstacles to progress. When assessed within smaller state and terrorist bioweapons programs, such as those of South Africa and the terrorist group Aum Shinrikyo, these intangible factors produce the same constraining effects as in larger programs. More important, intangible factors have a significant effect on covert programs, because clandestinity imposes greater restrictions on knowledge diffusion. By taking into account these intangible factors, analysts and policymakers can improve their threat assessments and develop more effective nonproliferation and counterproliferation policies.
DXer said
GAO. I’m listening to a lecture today about conflicts of interest. What is the correct conflict of interest analysis that applies to the fact that the daughter of the head of Amerithrax prosecution represented Ali Al-Timimi pro bono? For many months, she declined to recuse herself after I wrote her and her partner. The lead prosecutor, Daniel Seikaly, was the one who pled the Fifth Amendment, represented by Plato Cacheris at deposition, in connection with leaking the hyped story about the anthrax smelling bloodhounds. The correct conflict of interest is something that requires GAO’s expertise based on the most recent controlling precedent.
Amerithrax represents the greatest intelligence failure in the United States.
The question is: why?
DXer said
The GAO issued a recent report on the shortage at the FBI of counterterrorism experts. The unclassified version was released on April 17. The challenges faced by the FBI daily on a wide range of issues and crimes is mind-boggling.
FBI REPORTS SHORTAGE OF COUNTERTERRORISM EXPERTS
Jim Kouri
Published 04/29/2012 – 5:32 a.m. CST
This report is based on an unclassified version of a classified report the GAO issued in February 2012. The unclassified version was released on April 17 and it was immediately obtained for analysis by the National Association of Chiefs of Police and the Law Enforcement Examiner.
DXer said
NY man charged with spreading mercury at hospital
Associated Press
April 27, 2012, 3:01 a.m. ET
http://online.wsj.com/article/AP692b2147f5224be9823d207f321370a2.html
ALBANY, N.Y. — A man accused of spreading mercury on food and other surfaces in an upstate New York hospital cafeteria has been indicted on federal charges he put people in danger and illegally stored the neurotoxin.
U.S. Attorney Richard Hartunian says 59-year-old Martin Kimber of Ruby was seen on surveillance video at Albany Medical Center contaminating items that included heating elements that would vaporize the mercury, creating the possibility it could be inhaled.
Hartunian says Thursday one person was treated after eating mercury-laced food.
He says investigators found two jars of mercury, 21 guns and domestic terrorism book in Kimber’s home.
Kimber is being held in state prison. It wasn’t known if he has a lawyer.
The “knowing endangerment” charge carries a possible penalty of 15 years in prison.
http://www.dailyfreeman.com/articles/2012/04/27/news/doc4f99f87cac730681494556.txt#photo1
A search of Kimber’s Ruby home and his automobile resulted in the seizure of two jars of mercury and 21 guns, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said. During the search, authorities also found a copy of “The Turner Diaries,” which is said to reflect sympathy for domestic terrorism, as well as a Nazi swastika on a wall, the office said.
http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120426/NEWS/120429767
Comment:
Once I went to the Arlington VA police station and got a dusty box of evidence from the assassination of Rockwell, founder of the American Nazi Party. If the GMU researcher wants to study bureaucracy in a terrorist organization, the ANP is a prime example and that box contains some fascinating internal memos. The assassin had been disciplined for falling asleep at his post ( a printing press ). The internal disputes in such organizations can be fascinating.
With Dr. Ayman, of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, he tended to be very prickly and stressed — and once reamed out a cell in Yemen for buying a new fax when the old one would have served.
DXer said
Can you imagine the potential value of computer forensics in the case of this mercury poisoner? Wow. I think it is really important to try to locate the laptop that was in that B3. There is no reason GAO can’t interview Patricia Fellows about it. For example, if Dr. Ivins used it (he said that he didn’t) it is all the more reason to find it. He seems to have implied that PF is the one who would most likely know where it was — given she left during the period it went missing.