* nagging questions in the FBI’s anthrax case
Posted by DXer on April 15, 2009
August 13, 2008 … Nagging Questions in Anthrax Case – TIME – By Laura Fitzpatrick
The FBI says the government biodefense researcher acted alone in the 2001 anthrax mailings that killed five people and sickened 17. But as anthrax experts begin seeking hard data behind the eerie and suggestive details of the case, they are left with nothing but questions
… For one thing, the FBI says its anthrax evidence is based on “new and sophisticated scientific tools”
… No scientist has ever been able to accomplish a feat of such precision before, not even those familiar with the subtle variations of the anthrax genome — but the FBI won’t reveal its methods
… Equally troubling, scientists say, is the complete lack of forensic evidence in the FBI dossier. Documents reveal, for instance, that investigators swabbed Ivins’ home and cars for anthrax DNA and spores, but they don’t say whether the subsequent lab tests linked those samples to the 2001 envelopes
The scientists’ best hope to budge the FBI may be through Congress. Iowa Senator Charles Grassley and New Jersey Congressman Rush Holt — whose district is home to the Princeton, N.J., mailbox from which the FBI says Ivins mailed the anthrax letters — are pushing for a government inquiry into the FBI investigation.
read the entire article at … http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1832646,00.html?xid=rss-topstories
RELATED INTERVIEW (audio)
Keith Olbermann
CASE CLOSED ... what really happened in the 2001 anthrax attacks? 
DXer said
Ayman Zawahiri has publicly scoffed at this idea “You may be surprised if you learn who started Al Qaeda and what it really is.” He explained in his October 7, 2001 speech that they have been pursuing their quest since Sadat’s assassination and before.
I recommend the following books.
Anonymous [Michael Scheuer], Imperial hubris : why the West is losing the war on terror, (2004)
Bergen, Peter, Holy War Inc: Inside the Secret World of Osama bin Laden (2001)
Bergen, Peter, Osama bin Laden I know : an oral history of al-Qaeda’s leader (2006)
Clarke, Richard, Against All Enemies : Inside America’s War on Terror, (2004)
Hamid, Tawfik, Inside Jihad: Understanding and Confronting Radical Islam (2007)
Ibrahim, Raymond The Al Qaeda Reader (2007)
Sageman, M, Understanding terror networks, (2004)
Scheuer, Michael, Through Our Enemies’ Eyes: Osama bin Laden, Radical Islam, and the Future of America (rev. ed. 2007)
Weaver, Mary Anne, A Portrait of Egypt, (1999)
Wright, Lawrence, The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 (2006)
al-Zawahiri, Ayman, Al Hasad al-Murr: al-Ikhwan al-Muslimoun fi Sittin Aman, The Bitter Harvest: The Muslim Brotherhood in Sixty Years (1999)
al-Zawahiri, Ayman, Knights Under the Prophet’s Banner, serialized in the London-based Al Sharq Al Awsat newspaper, December 2001.
al-Zayyat, Montasser The Road To Al-Qaeda: The Story of Bin Laden’s Right-Hand Man (2003)
al-Zayy¯at , Muntasir, al-Jam¯a`¯at al-Isl¯am¯iyah : ru’yah min al-d¯akhil (2005)
DXer said
“No scientist has ever been able to accomplish a feat of such precision before, not even those familiar with the subtle variations of the anthrax genome — but the FBI won’t reveal its methods.”
But the FBI did reveal its methods — at the February 2009 ASM Conference. You link an August 2008 article.
And soon more will be set forth in EID articles.
The problem is, as the FBI’s genetics experts explain, is that it points to the isolates from flask 1029 that were genetically identical. The evidence points to the 100-300, rather than Ivins. You need to concentrate instead on how they excluded the 100-300 known to have had access.
DXer said
The White House knew of the anthrax threat as explained in the late January 2001 PDB from the CIA to President Bush.
By way of some background, on March 23, 2003, the Washington Post reported on documents allegedly discovered at the Abdul Qadoos Khan residence — on a seized laptop — relating to biochemical weapons. The documents indicated that Al Qaeda leaders may already have manufactured some of them. The documents at the Qadoos home reveal that Al Qaeda had a feasible production plan for anthrax. Confronted with scanned handwritten notes on the computer, Mohammed reportedly began to talk about Al Qaeda’s anthrax production program. KSM, however, denies that it was his computer. He says it was the computer of Mustafa Hawsawi, who was captured at the home the same day. Hawsawi was the former accountant for Bin Laden’s farm in Khartoum. In 2001, before departing for the UAE, Al-Hawsawi had worked in the Al Qaeda media center Al Sahab (Clouds) in Kandahar. The letter containing the first anthrax went to the American Media in Florida had blue and pink clouds on it.
Hawsawi worked under KSM who in turn worked for Zawahiri. Al-Hawsawi was a facilitator for the 9/11 attacks and its paymaster, working from the United Arab Emirates. He sent thousands to Bin Al-Shibh in the summer of 2001. After 9/11, he returned to Afghanistan where he met separately with Bin Laden, Zawahiri and spokesman Abu Ghaith. KSM worked closely with al-Hawsawi. It would make perfect sense that the computer is actually al-Hawsawi’s. The fact that the anthrax spray drying documents were on that computer, however, and that Al-Hawsawi had worked for Al Sahab in Kandahar in 2000, serves to suggest that the undated documents predated 9/11, particularly given that extremely virulent anthrax was later found in Kandahar. At the same time, it suggests that Al-Hawsawi has personal knowledge relevant to anthrax. Al-Hawawi in turn worked with Aafia Siddiqui’s husband-to-be, KSM’s nephew Al-Baluchi, in the UAE in the summer of 2001. The two provided logistical support for the hijackers.
Hawsawi worked as a financial manager for Bin Laden when he was in Sudan. He was associated with Egyptian Islamic Jihad shura leader Mahjoub, who was Bin Laden’s farm manager in Sudan. Mahjoub was the subject of the anthrax threat in January 2001 in Canada, upon announcement of his bail hearing. The day after Mahjoub’s bail was denied on October 5, 2001, the potent stuff was sent to US Senators Daschle and Leahy. The FBI needed to prioritize any lead involving individuals who knew Mahjoub; but in accusing Ivins, it appears that they failed to do so.
The Washington Post explained that “What the documents and debriefings show, the first official said, is that “KSM was involved in anthrax production, and [knew] quite a bit about it.” Barton Gellman in the Post explained that Al Qaeda had recruited competent scientists, including a Pakistani microbiologist who the officials declined to name. “The documents describe specific timelines for producing biochemical weapons and include a bar graph depicting the parallel processes that must take place between Days 1 and 31 of manufacture. Included are inventories of equipment and indications of readiness to grow seed stocks of pathogen in nutrient baths and then dry the resulting liquid slurry into a form suitable for aerosol dispersal.” The Washington Post story notes that U.S. officials said the evidence does not indicate whether al Qaeda completed manufacture. The documents are undated and unsigned and cryptic about essential details.
In addition to establishing him as paymaster for the hijackers, Al-Hawsawi’s computer disks reportedly also included lists of contributors worldwide, to include bank account numbers and names of organizations that have helped finance terror attacks. In press accounts, one unnamed government official confirmed that the information has yielded the identities of about a dozen suspected terrorists in the US. In his substituted testimony in the Moussaoui case, Al-Hawsawi says he became part of Al Qaeda’s media committee in Afghanistan in about July 2000. Hawsawi lived at the media office. For about 4-5 months in 2000, Hawsawi worked as a secretary on al Qaeda’s media committee. Hawsawi’s role “was to copy compact discs and reprint articles for the brothers at the guesthouse in Qandahar. After 2000, Hawsawi worked at the direction of Sheikh Mohammed, transferring funds, and procuring goods.” KSM joined the committee in February 2001.
The first time that Hawsawi was asked to be come involved in operational activities was about March 2001, when he took his second trip to the UAE. Although Sheikh Mohammed did not use the word “operation,” Sheikh Mohammed told Hawsawi that he would be purchasing items, receiving and possibly sending money, and possibly meeting individuals whom Hawsawi would contact or who would contact him. Sheikh Mohammed also told Hawsawi that his stay would be lengthy, so he should rent an apartment. Sheikh Mohammed said Hawsawi did not need cover because he was carrying a Saudi passport, and it was a common practice for a Saudi to rent an apartment in the UAE. In approximately August 2001, Hawsawi, with Sheikh Mohammed’s blessing, decided to take an English course.
Sheik Mohammed told Hawsawi that he would be in contact with individuals called ‘Abd Al-Rahman (Muhammad Atta) and the “Doctor” (Nawaf al-Hazmi). Atta called Hawsawi four times while in the US. Hawsawi says he was never in contact with Hani or Nawaf while in the US. On September 9, Ramzi bin Shibh told him the date of the planned operation and urged that he return to Pakistan. He flew out on 9/11 and after a night in Karachi, flew on to Quetta. Hawsawi stated repeatedly that he never conducted any activity of any type with or on behalf of Moussaoui and had no knowledge of who made Moussaoui’s travel arrangements. Documents, however, reportedly show that al-Hawsawi worked with the Dublin cell to finance Moussaoui’s international travel. Hamid Aich was an EIJ operative there who once had lived with Ressam, the so-called millennium bomber, in Canada. The indictment of Zacarias Moussaoui named al-Hawsawi as an unindicted co-conspirator. Moussaoui unsuccessfully tried to call KSM and Hawsawi as witnessses.
Hawsawi has said that it was Qahtani who was to have been “the 20th hijacker” rather than Moussaoui. Qahtani, Hawsawi said, had trained extensively to be one of the “muscle hijackers.” Atta went to pick Qahtani up at the Orlando airport but immigration officials turned Qahtani away. Al-Hawsawi said he had seen Moussaoui at an al-Qaeda guesthouse in Kandahar, Afghanistan, sometime in the first half of 2001, but was not introduced to him and had not conducted any operations with him. At Moussaoui’s trial, the government pointed to FAA intelligence reports from the late 1990s and 2000 that noted that a hijacked airliner could be flown into a building or national landmark in the U.S., Such an attack was viewed “as an option of last resort” given the motive of the attack was to free blind sheik Abdel Rahman. Flying a plane into a building would afford little time to negotiate.
Zacarias Moussaou was in Karachi with anthrax lab tech Yazid Sufaat on February 3, 2001 when they bought air tickets through a local travel agency for Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. They left on a flight for KL on February 8, 2001. Moussaoui began at the Norman, Oklahoma flight school on February 26, 2001. KSM says that Moussaoui’s inquiries about cropdusters may have related to Hambali and Sufaat’s work with anthrax.
Another reason not to underestimate Hawsawi’s role in an anthrax operation is his contact with al-Marri. Al-Marri, who entered the country on September 10, 2001, was researching chemicals in connection with a “second wave.” Al-Marri was also drafting emails to KSM. Although al-Marri denies being in contact with Hawsawi, phone records show otherwise. Email evidence also confirms messages drafted by al-Marri to KSM. An article by Susan Schmidt in the Washington Post on al-Marri notes that al-Marri picked up $13,000 in cash from al-Hawsawi. Al-Marri made the mistake of opening the briefcase containing the money in bundles and peeling off a few hundred dollars to pay his bail after being stopped on a traffic charge a couple days after 9/11. References to al-Hawsawi turned up in the Dublin, Ireland, office of a Saudi-backed charity suspected of having links to bin Laden upon a raid after 9/11 by Irish authorities.
Both Mahjoub and Al-Hawsawi worked together in Khartoum. To begin to understand Amerithrax, the government should declassify the late January 2001 PDB from the CIA to President Bush on Al Qaeda’s interest in biological weapons. The Bush Administration kept the secret for 8 years. Most intelligence, however, is open source. Like the early August 2001 PDB, there is no need to keep the PDB classified except to save the former Bush Administration some embarrassment.
DXer said
Or, rather, it was an early February 2001 that was written briefing the President on a late January 2001 threat to use mailed anthrax if the bail was denied the Vanguards of Conquest #2 Mahmoud Mahjoub. Bail was denied on October 5 and the mailer then rushed to mail the anthrax.
The CIA has known of the plans by Zawahiri and the Vanguards of Conquest 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, announced in March 1999 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 beginning May 1996. Although Mabruk changed his location every few months, Jaballah kept aware of his whereabouts through his contacts with Jaballah’s brother-in-law Shehata. Shehata 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 was 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.
DXer said
Deadly letters were not merely the modus operandi of the Vanguards of Conquest (which can be thought of as the military wing of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad that is living abroad). They were its signature.
A memo seized in the 1995 arrest proposed flying an explosive laden plane into CIA headquarters. Anyone reading the Washington Post in the mid-1990s read about the plan to fly a plane into CIA headquarters over their morning coffee. The earlier plot to fly an airliner into the Eiffel tower by some Algerians connected to Bin Laden was also notable. Condi Rice professed not to have imagined the threat even though it was publicly known and even a threat at the G-8 conference. It’s important that as a country we learn from our mistakes and not pay short shrift to the evidence on the issue of modus operandi relating to Zawahiri’s planned use of anthrax and his plan to recruit specialists using the cover of charities and universities.
This was not the first time the Egyptian islamists sent letter bombs to newspaper offices in connection with an attack on the World Trade Center. NPR set the scene. It was January 2, 1997, at 9:15 a.m. at the National Press Building in Washington, D.C. The employee of the Saudi-owned newspaper Al Hayat began to open a letter. It was a Christmas card — the kind that plays a musical tune. It was white envelope, five and a half inches by six and a half inches, with a computer-generated address label attached. It had foreign postage and a post mark — a postmark appearing to be from Alexandria, Egypt. It looked suspiciously bulky, so he set it down and called the police. Minutes later they found a similar envelope. These were the first two of four letter bombs that would arrive at Al Hayat during the day. A fifth letter bomb addressed to the paper was intercepted at a nearby post office. They all looked the same. Two similar letter bombs addressed to the “parole officer” (a position that does not exist) arrived at the federal penitentiary at Leavenworth. It seemed evident how some Grinch had spent the holidays in Alexandria, Egypt.
Egyptian Saif Adel (Makawwi), thought to be in Iran, was involved in military planning. Adel was a colonel in the Egyptian Army’s Special Forces before joining Al Qaeda. He helped plan the 1998 attacks on the US embassies in Africa. He was also a planner in the attack on the USS Cole and has served as the liaison officer between Hezbollah and Al Qaeda. Adel assisted Atef, who had overall responsibility for Al Qaeda’s operations. According to Cairo Attorney Al-Zayyat, Makkawi had many times claimed responsibility for operations that were carried out inside Egypt but when the perpetrators were arrested, it would be al-Zawahiri’s name whose name they shouted loyalty to from the docks. After the letter al-Hayat letter bombs were sent in January 1997, Saif Adel (Makawwi) gave a statement denying responsibility on behalf of the Vanguards of Conquest.
On January 7, 1997 Saif Adel purporting to be speaking for the Egyptian Vanguards of Islamic Conquest said: “Those are messages of admonishment. There is no flirtation between us and the Americans in order for us to send them such alarming messages in such a manner.” Adel said that “the Vanguards of Conquest “are heavyweight and would not embark on such childish actions.” US press and political commentaries had hinted at the Vanguards of Conquest organization’s involvement in these attempts. In his statement to Al-Hayat, perhaps referring to the Egyptian Islamic Group, Adel added “I am surprised that we in particular, and not other parties, should be accused of such an operation.”
He got admonished by the unnamed but official spokesman for the Vanguards organization. This other spokesman chastisied him as not being authorized to speak for the organization (or even being a member). “We welcome any Muslim who wants to join us, and if Makkawi wants to [join us], he will be welcomed to the Vanguards march, but through the organizational channels. But if words are not coupled with actions, we tell him: Fear God, and you can use a different name other than the Vanguards to speak on its behalf.” The spokesman denounced Makkawi’s authority to speak for the group, referring to the January 5th statement it had made denying responsibility. The spokesperson for the Vanguards of Conquest apparently was Post Office employee Sattar’s friend, Al-Sirri, based in London.
The FBI would not speculate as to who sent the letters or why. But this was your classic “duck that walks like a duck” situation. As NPR reported at the time, “analysts say that letter bombs are rarely sent in batches, and when they are it’s generally prompted by politics, not personal animus.” Al Hayat was a well respected and moderate newspaper. It was friendly to moderate Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt. That, without more, was accurately discerned by observers at the time as sufficient to make the newspaper outlet a target of the militant islamists. The newspaper, its editor explained, does not avoid criticizing militant islamists. The Al Hayat Editor-in-Chief explained: “We’ve been opposed to all extremists in the Arab world, especially the fundamentalists.” Mohammed Salameh, a central defendant in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, was sent to Leavenworth in 1994. The other three Egyptian extremists convicted in the bombing were sent to prisons in California, Indiana and Colorado. Like the blind sheik Abdel-Rahman, Salameh had complained of his conditions and asked to be avenged. The Blind Sheik was particularly irked that the prison officials did not cut his fingernails.
Abdel-Rahman was convicted in 1995 of seditious conspiracy, bombing conspiracy, soliciting an attack on an U.S. military installation, and soliciting the murder of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. His followers were indicted for plotting to bomb bridges, tunnels and landmarks in New York for which Rahman allegedly had given his blessings. The mailing of deadly letters in connection with an earlier attack on the World Trade Center was not merely the modus operandi of militant islamists, it was the group’s signature. It’s their calling card. Khaled Abu el-Dahab, a naturalized American, from Silicon Valley, in a confession detailed Egyptian defense ministry document dated October 28, 1998, explained that he was trained to make booby-trapped letters to send to important people, as well as asked to enroll in American aviation schools to learn how to fly gliders and helicopters. He was a friend of Ali Mohammed, the former special forces officer in the Egyptian army and former US Army Sergeant. The modus operandi of these militant supporters of the blind sheik was known to be planes and booby-trapped letters.
The Al Hayat reporters and editor were not expressing an opinion — though the owner did lay out various possibilities (e.g., Iraq, Iran etc.). The owner of the paper had commanded Saudi forces during the Persian Gulf War, when Bin Laden was so upset about American troops on the Arabian peninsula. Moreover, al Hayat had recently opened up a Bureau in Jerusalem, giving it a dateline of Jerusalem rather than al Quds, which some thought blasphemous. But none of the possibilities would plausibly explain why the letter bomb was sent to Leavensworth where three of the WTC 1993 defendants were imprisoned, including Ramzi Yousef’s lieutenant who had asked that his mistreatment be avenged. (That was the criminal genius who returned to Ryder to reclaim his deposit after blowing up the truck at WTC). Egyptian security officials argued that the letters were sent from outside of Egypt, the stamps were not available in Egypt, and that the postmark was not Alexandria as reported. Whatever the place of mailing, the sender likely was someone who was upset that KSM’s and Ramzi Yousef’s associates had been imprisoned, to include, most notably, the blind sheik. Whoever is responsible for the anthrax mailings, it is a very good bet that they are upset the blind sheik is detained. That should be at the center of any classified profile of the crime.
In connection with the January 1997 letter bombs, Ayman got the know-how to send sophisticated electronic letter bombs from Iraqi intelligence according to one item from the highly controversial Feith memo. In the al Hayat letter bombings, Ayman allowed the finger to be pointed at Libya. In the Amerithrax letters, he allowed the finger to be pointed to a United States biodefense insider by the prosecutor who would have presented to any indictment to the grand jury. Born in Haifa in 1948, the man’s daughter then came to represent microbiologist Al-Timimi pro bono. The prosecutor pled the Fifth in civil deposition about being the source of the Hatfill leaks.
After the Al Hayat letter bombs to newspapers in DC and NYC and people in symbolic positions, in January 1997, both the Blind Sheikh and his paralegal, Sattar, were quoted in separate articles in Al Hayat (in Arabic) denying that they or their supporters were responsible. The Blind Sheikh commented that al Hayat was fair and balanced in its coverage and his supporters would have no reason to “hit” them. The same sort of counterintuitive theory was raised in connection with the earlier letter bombing of newspapers to DC and New York City and people in symbolic positions. Sattar noted that the bombs were mailed on December 20, one day before the brief in support of the blind sheik on appeal. He questioned whether someone (like the FBI) was trying to undermine the appeal’s prospects. (Egyptian intelligence seems a more credible suggestion under such a theory). This time, Mr. Sattar did not need any help making the argument with respect to the anthrax letters. Numerous people with political agendas rushed to do it for him to include counsel for Bosnia and Herzogovina and legal advisor to the PLO, professor Francis Boyle. In accusing Dr. Ivins on the occasion of his death, the FBI embraced the same sort of theory — that is, when it was not grasping at other untenable theories relating to college sororities, incorrectly perceived anti-abortion news, or perceived financial motive.
In September 2006, in a Sahab Media production called “Knowledge is for acting,” there is a clip in which Al Quds editor Atwan refers to his visit with Bin Laden in 1996 (see also his 2006 book The Secret History of al Qaeda). He says that Bin Laden was planning to attack America “and America prisons in particular.” That was an apparent reference to the Al Hayat letter bombs sent to newspapers and prisons in January 1997. There were recurrent references to Abdel-Rahman in the tape.
DXer said
According to a May 7, 1999 email — in contrast to the large amounts suggested by today’s AP story — the modest amount of $2,000 to $4,000 had been marked for “startup” costs of the program. A letter dated May 23, 1999 written by one of Zawahiri’s aliases mentions some “very useful ideas” that had been discussed during a visit to the training camp Abu Khabab. “It just needs some experiments to develop its practical use.” Especially promising was a home-brew nerve gas made from insecticides and a chemical additive that would help speed up penetration into the skin.
In 1999, Zawahiri created some computer documents describing his biological and chemical program, which he code-named Zabadi or “Curdled Milk.” It is 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). Was Ayman’s code-name al-Zabadi, meaning yogurt. Or was it instead 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.”
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.
George Tenet, in At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA, summarized:
“The most startling revelation from this intelligence success story was that the anthrax program had been developed in parallel to 9/11 planning. As best as we could determine, al-Zawahiri’s project had been wrapped up in the summer of 2001, when the al-Qaida deputy, along with Hambali, were briefed over a week by Sufaat on the progress he had made to isolate anthrax. The entire operation had been managed at the top of al-Qai’da with strict compartmentalization. Having completed this phase of his work, Sufaat fled Afghanistan in December 2001 and was captured by authorities trying to sneak back into Malaysia. Rauf Ahmad was detained by Pakistani authorities in December 2001. Our hope was that these and our many other actions had neutralized the anthrax threat, at least temporarily.”
In an April 1999 memorandum, Zawahiri wrote that “the destructive power of these [biological] weapons is no less than that of nuclear weapons. *** [D]espite their extreme danger, we only became aware of them when the enemy drew our attention to them by repeatedly expressing concern that they can be produced simply.” Demonstrating that Al Qaeda’s knowledge and expertise was still at a very early stage despite the grand statements and threats the earlier year, the memorandum read:
“To: Muhammed Atef
From: Ayman al-Zawahiri
Folder: Outgoing Mail
Date: April 15, 1999
I have read the majority of the book [an unnamed volume, probably on biological and chemical weapons] [It] is undoubtedly useful. It emphasizes a number of important facts, such as:
1) The enemy started thinking about these weapons before WWI. Despite their extreme danger, we only became aware of them when the enemy drew our attention to them by repeatedly expressing concerns that they can be produced simply with easily available materials.
b) The destructive power of these weapons is no less than that of nuclear weapons.
c) A germ attack is often detected days after it occurs, which raises the number of victims.
d) Defense against such weapons is very difficult, particularly if large quantities are used.”
Ayman continued: “I would like to emphasize what we previously discussed—that looking for a specialist is the fastest, safest, and cheapest way [to embark on a biological- and chemical-weapons program].”
Simultaneously, we should conduct a search on our own.*
** Along these lines, the book guided me to a number of references that I am attaching. Perhaps you can find someone to obtain them.”
The memorandum goes on to cite mid-twentieth-century articles from, among other sources, Science, The Journal of Immunology, and The New England Journal of Medicine, and lists the names of such books as Tomorrow’s Weapons (1964), Peace or Pestilence (1949), and Chemical Warfare (1921).
The April 1999 email to Atef indicated Ayman had read one USAMRIID author’s description of the secret history of anthrax reported by USAMRIID — the book was called Peace or Pestilence. That was 2 1/2 years before the Fall 2001 anthrax mailings. Post-9/11, we have had the same history avidly reported to us by critics of the biodefense industry. Ayman, well-aware of USAMRIID’s history with anthrax, may have had an operative or some other sympathizer arrange to obtain the US Army strain that would point the public and authorities to this history — confounding true crime analysis at the same time providing moral justification for the use anthrax under the laws of jihad. His interpretation — alluded to in the repeated citation to a particular koranic verse — was that jihadists should use the weapons used by their enemies.
In Afghanistan, Zawahiri was assisted by Midhat Mursi (alias Abu Khabab). In his late 1940s, Mursi had graduated from the University of Alexandria in 1975. An Egyptian chemical engineer, he ran the camp named Abu Khabab. Intelligence reportedly indicates that Midhat Mursi had for some time been linked to the Kashmir-based Pakistani group Lashkar-e-Taiba. Midhat Mursi was widely reported and believed to have been killed in a January 2006 bombing raid in Pakistan — at a high-level terror summit at which Zawahiri’s son-in-law was also killed. But a year-and-a-half later, the Washington Post matter-of-factly announced: “U.S. and Pakistani officials now say that none of those al-Qaeda leaders perished in the strike and that only local villagers were killed.” Midhat Mursi later was killed in a missile strike in the summer of 2008.
Al Qaeda’s experimentation with its chemical weapons has been featured on the nightly television news picturing a dog being put to death. Director of the Center for Nonproliferation Studies and former U.N. weapons inspector in Iraq, Jonathan Tucker, an expert retained by the government to determine the chemical used in the video, opined that it was hydrogen cyanide. As journalist John Berger explained of the tapes: “US intelligence said al-Qaida’s chemical weapons programme was centered in Darunta camp. The mastermind behind experiments was allegedly Egyptian Midhat Mursi, who ran a section of the camp known as Khabab, and who worked mainly with Egyptians. Experts said that all but one of the voices on the tapes shown yesterday by CNN spoke in Egyptian accents. KSM had non-pilot hijackers practice how to slit passengers’ throats by making the hijackers practice killing sheep, goats, and camels in connection with the planned “Planes Operation.” Did the Amerithrax perpetrators similarly practice killing animals?
Ahmed Ressam testified at his trial in New York that he participated in experiments using cyanide gas pumped into an office building ventilation system at a training camp run by bin Laden in Afghanistan. Abu Khabab camp was within the Darunta Camp, which also included the Assadalah Abdul Rahman camp, operated by the son of blind cleric Omar Abdel Rahman. Ayman liked the idea to make a home-brew nerve gas from insecticides and a chemical additive that would help speed penetration into the skin. In a June 1999 memo, however, he talked about building labs (with one being closed every three months so it can be moved and replaced by another), and planned to have them covered with oil paint so they might be cleaned with insecticides.
In mid-May 2008, it was reported “Court documents filed in one of her brother’s cases show the Mounties say they found a hard drive that includes ‘material dealing with bomb making, ricin, techniques of assassination, chemicals, poisons, silencers, etc; incoming and outgoing e-mails of Zaynab Khadr.'” Zaynab Khadr was the daughter of Ahmed Khadr, the Canadian who was a confidante of Zawahiri and Bin Laden. The article continues: “The once-secret RCMP memo of August, 2005, then goes on to describe other seized files, including “some sort of military operational plan to infiltrate Burma and establish an al-Qaeda base, curriculum for religious studies at al-Faruq training camp, techniques to invade prisons, contract for immoral acts; administrative letters from [Osama bin Laden], etc.” The article by Colin Freeze continues: “A court-filed transcript shows her brother, in a subsequent RCMP interview, upheld that much of the extremist propaganda on the laptop did not belong to Zaynab. ‘That’s my father’s hard drive,’ Abdullah Khadr told the Mounties. He later added that he had personally directed his sister to upload certain jihadist material.” “Records show the Mounties were very curious to know about the family’s relationship with a reputed al-Qaeda bomb-maker – since killed – known as Abu Khabbab Al-Masri, whom the RCMP suggest actually wrote many of the seized files.
Khadr led the so-called Canadian cell and was in touch with Vanguards of Conquest #2 Mahmoud Mahjoub, whose bail was denied on October 5, 2001, prompting the anthrax letters to the Senators.
AS said
Are you trying to say the White House staff was on Cipro because of a CIA memo warning about mailed Anthrax?
No doctor in the world would put you on Cipro a.k.a Gorillacillin because of a memo.
DXer said
It is not at all surprising that the United States Secret Service or whoever charged with the safety of the WH would advise some at the White House to take Cipro (if you right that they did) given that on 9/11, the FBI accessed Moussaoui’s laptop and found the documents about cropdusting and wind patterns etc. The senior Egyptian Islamic Jihad leaders had previously announced an intention to use aerosolized anthrax against US targets in retaliation against US targets. 75% of Al Qaeda leadership was Egyptian, mostly from the Cairo area in the late 1970s from the medical, legal and engineering professions. The EIJ modus operandi was the attempted assassination of leaders in symbolic positions. AQ’s targetting, in fact, had included the Capitol, the Pentagon, and the WTC. They had assassinated Sadat and various ministers — and had made attempts on Mubarak. Moussaoui’s inquiries were quickly confirmed by information about Atta’s inquiries. What authority are you relying on for the date and number of people taking Cipro? (distinguishing a prescription). My doctor issued my prescription, which doesn’t cost anything, on 9/21. The cropdusting inquiries were major news in September 2001. I would hope that their intelligence beats the man with the Hazmat suit on TIME (9/24?) by at least a few days.
AS said
Had a crop duster been sighted over DC or another incident where you would have cause to believe the WH was exposed then you would easily find doctors to prescribe gorillacilin. But since there were none of these I state again that you would not be prescribed gorillacilin because of a memo about a possible threat. Just as the PDB that suggested hijacked planes would be used for terror attacks got nothing more than Bushie saying okay, you’ve covered your ass.
DXer said
AS,
Well, the White House Chief of Staff’s former assistant, Ali Al-Timimi, was coordinating with the 911 imam and Bin Laden’s sheik. He had a high security clearance for work for the Navy in 1999 (where former USAMRIID deputy commander Bailey worked and was a Battelle consultant in 1999). He was interviewed on 9/18; and the FBI had an informant at 9/16 lunch and 9/17 dinner.
Both Al-Timimi and Dr. B came to the building, Discovery Hall, that housed the DARPA-funded Center for Biodefense. Ali shared a maildrop and fax with the leading anthrax scientist in the world, Kenneth Alibek, who abrupty left the country for reasons he has not explained.
Dr. Bailey co-invented with Dr. Alibek a process by which to concentrate anthrax using silicon dioxide in the culture medium. The FBI WMD Chief says that the Silicon Signature could have arisen from silica in the culture medium.
So maybe you are right, AS. At least in that maybe the White House had reasons to fear Ayman Zawahiri would use anthrax in addition to the fact that it had been publicly announced was his intention by his former colleagues (both shura members) and the Blind Sheik’s lawyer. But why would one need more than that announcement? If an enemy has announced he is going to use anthrax, as was the case here, a doctor that did not provide a supply of Cipro to the people going off to Camp David would not have been doing his job.
They were heaed off to Camp David, it is not all surprising that the doctors gave them a supply of Cipro. My doctor did on 9/21. It’s just not a big deal. It’s part of preparedness. You perhaps were not a Boy Scout. And you were not getting the intel that Cheney was.
AS said
DXer,
Your alright. You don’t throw around words like conspiracy theorist and useless nonsense like others who are interested in this subject. One name in particular comes to mind.
But, I would like you think about this. If a doctor were to prescribe gorillacillin without any reason to believe exposure had already happened then when would the doctor feel safe taking those patients off the gorillacillin? Are they just going to take it indefinitely? No, that’s why you don’t prescribe it without a reason to believe exposure has occurred.
DXer said
I think we’ve covered this point, AS. We just disagree. I think that if the doctor had not given them a supply of Cipro given that they had been told they would be attacked by anthrax — by someone who had some street cred given he had just killed 3000 — then the doctor and secret service would not be doing their job. The VP and his entourage were given it to take with them to Camp David. Big deal. It was after contamination was found in the White House mail system that something like up to 60 or whatever were actually taking it. On the timeline, you are confusing giving them Cipro to take with them (with a prescription authorizing it) and them actually taking it. As I said, I was chatting with my doctor on 9/21 after seeing some article about cropdusters and casually asked for my doctor for a prescription and he gave it to me. It is no different than having a first aid kit in the closet. Of course, after the date the anthrax alarm went off in the VP’s personal headquarters, and he thought he had been exposed and was going to die, his doctor likely got a fruit basket as a thank-you.
DXer said
Stuart, why did Dr. Hatfill’s girlfriend have a prescription?
Why was their Cipro hidden in the coffee canister in her apartment?
Now why can you so blithely overlook that while not accepting the profferred explanations for the White House’s precautions?
From DARK SIDE:
“On October 17, 2001, a white powder that had been sent through the U.S. mail to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle’s office in the Capitol was positively identified. Scientific analysis showed it to be an unusually difficult to obtain and lethally potent form of the deadly bacterial poison anthrax. This news followed less than ten days after the death in Florida of a victim in another mysterious anthrax attack. The anthrax spores in the letter to Daschle were so professionally refined, the Central Intelligence Agency believed the powder must have been sent by an experienced terrorist organization, most probably Al Qaeda, as a sequel to the group’s September 11 attacks. During a meeting of the White House’s National Security Council that day, Cheney, who was sitting in for the President because Bush was traveling abroad, urged everyone to keep this inflammatory speculation secret.
At the time, no one, not even America’s best-informed national security leaders, really knew anything for sure about what sorts of threats loomed, or from where. The only certainty shared by virtually the entire American intelligence community in the fall of 2001 was that a second wave of even more devastating terrorist attacks on America was imminent. In preparation, the CIA had compiled a list of likely targets ranging from movie studios–whose heads were warned by the Bush Administration to take precautions–to sports arenas and corporate headquarters. Topping the list was the White House.
The next day, the worst of these fears seemed realized. On October 18, 2001, an alarm in the White House went off. Chillingly, the warning signal wasn’t a simple fire alarm triggered by the detection of smoke. It was a sensitive, specialized sensor, designed to alert anyone in the vicinity that the air they were breathing had been contaminated by potentially lethal radioactive, chemical, or biological agents. Everyone who had entered the Situation Room that day was believed to have been exposed, and that included Cheney. “They thought there had been a nerve attack,” a former administration official, who was sworn to secrecy about it, later confided. “It was really, really scary. They thought that Cheney was already lethally infected.” Facing the possibility of his own death, the Vice President nonetheless calmly reported the emergency to the rest of the National Security Council.
Members of the National Security Council were all too well aware of the seriousness of the peril they were facing. At Cheney’s urging, they had received a harrowing briefing just a few weeks earlier about the possibility of biological attack. His attention had been drawn to the subject by a war game called Dark Winter conducted in the summer before that simulated the effects of an outbreak of smallpox in America. After the September 11 attacks, Cheney’s chief of staff,
I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, screened a video of the Dark Winter exercise for Cheney, showing that the United States was virtually defenseless against smallpox or any other biological attack. Cheney in particular was so stricken by the potential for attack that he insisted that the rest of the National Security Council undergo a gruesome briefing on it on September 20, 2001. When the White House sensor registered the presence of such poisons less than a month later, many, including Cheney, believed a nightmare was unfolding. “It was a really nerve-jangling time,” the former official said.
In time, the Situation Room alarm turned out to be false. But on October 22, the Secret Service reported that it had found what it believed to be additional anthrax traces on an automated letter-opening device used on White House mail. By then, Cheney had convinced the President to support a $1.6 billion bioterrorism-preparedness program. Cheney argued that every citizen in the country should be vaccinated against smallpox.”
As you may remember, I’m the guy who has argued that it was the former assistant of the White House Chief of Staff who was known to be a Salafist — who was in the suite of the leading anthrax scientist who co-invented the process to use silica to increase the concentration of anthrax. So I have no idea why you want to cast me as an apologist for the White House based only on your lay understanding of the evils of antibiotics relative to terroristic attempts to, for example, fly an airliner into the White House or disperse anthrax aerially using a cropduster.
DXer said
“The [2001 anthrax] attacks were not entirely unexpected. I had been told soon after Sept. 11 to secure Cipro, the antidote to anthrax. The tip had come in a roundabout way from a high government official, and I immediately acted on it. I was carrying Cipro way before most people had ever heard of it.” [former Secretary of Defense Cohen, in Slate, 3/18/2008]”
He will explain on a different occasion, “On a tip, I asked my doctor early on to prescribe Cipro for me, only to find out that, insider though I thought I was, nearly everyone had been asking him for the same thing.” [Washington Post, 7/22/2004]
DXer said
Oops. I guess that was, Slate reports, the Washington Post’s columnist, Richard Cohen,
From Slate:
“Cohen — in a March 18, 2008 Slate article in which he explains why he wrongfully supported the attack on Iraq — disclosed this:
Anthrax. Remember anthrax? It seems no one does anymore — at least it’s never mentioned. But right after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, letters laced with anthrax were received at the New York Post and Tom Brokaw’s office at NBC. . . . There was ample reason to be afraid.
The attacks were not entirely unexpected. I had been told soon after Sept. 11 to secure Cipro, the antidote to anthrax. The tip had come in a roundabout way from a high government official, and I immediately acted on it. I was carrying Cipro way before most people had ever heard of it.
For this and other reasons, the anthrax letters appeared linked to the awful events of Sept. 11. It all seemed one and the same. Already, my impulse had been to strike back, an overwhelming urge that had, in fact, taken me by surprise on Sept. 11 itself when the first of the Twin Towers had collapsed. . . .”
DXer said
Our Forgotten Panic
By Richard Cohen
Thursday, July 22, 2004; Page A21
***
At the time, Stevens’s death and those that followed appeared somehow linked to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11. That seemed to make sense because the first letters containing anthrax spores were mailed around that time and, maybe more to the point, the authorities at first said so. “There is a suspicion that this is connected to international terrorists,” White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said. House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt echoed him: “I don’t think there’s a way to prove that, but I think we all suspect that.”…
I mention anthrax for the simple reason that no one does anymore. It’s a curious silence since, along with the attacks on New York and the Pentagon, it all but dominated the news. Some of us did not get mail deliveries and, when they resumed, we went into secure rooms where we donned latex gloves and face masks before opening letters. On a tip, I asked my doctor early on to prescribe Cipro for me, only to find out that, insider though I thought I was, nearly everyone had been asking him for the same thing. …
***
It’s great that we have multiple commissions looking into intelligence failures, but none of those commissions will come close to the greatest intelligence failure of all — our inability to use our heads when we most needed to. The terrorist attacks coupled with the anthrax scare unhinged us a bit — or maybe more than a bit. We eventually went into a war that now makes little sense and that, without a doubt, was waged for reasons that simply did not exist. We did so, I think, because we were scared. You could say we lacked judgment. Maybe. I would say we lacked leadership.
AS said
Ed Lake said: “CONGRATULATIONS! That qualifies you to be a True Believer!!!”
Actually in the real world it’s called material witness.
AS said
In Ed Lake world the man who is a known liar and self admitted murderer must be innocent and the man who’s credentials are impeccable and has no history of violence must be guilty.
AS said
Ed Lake said:
“Dr. Hatfill was exonerated ”
Yep, by that same illustrious agency that said there is no such thing as the mafia.
AS said
Are we really to believe the FBI “theory” that Ottillie Lundgren and kathy Nguyen died from “cross contamination”? If that were possible why did we not have many casualties along the east coast from “cross contamination”?
DXer said
Let’s consider the case of Kathy Nguyen and an article about her infection in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
An arrest warrant issued for a former Falls Church, Virginia resident, Dr. Hassan Faraj, on immigration charges on June 29, 2004. He had been working as an intern and resident at hospital in Manhattan for the past three years.
The Syrian-born doctor, Hassan Faraj, formerly worked for the Al Qaeda front charity, BIF, in Zagreb, Croatia. He was accused in late June 2004 of supporting an Al Qaeda terrorist. He was listed in 2002 as an author of a key article in the Journal of the American Medical Association (“JAMA”) about the fatal anthrax inhalation exposure of 61- year-old Kathy Nguyen.
In October 2001, NATO forces raided the Saudi High Commission for Aid to Bosnia and seized before-and-after photographs of the World Trade Center, U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and the USS Cole; maps of government buildings in Washington; materials for forging U.S. State Department badges; files on the use of crop duster aircraft; and anti-Semitic and anti-American material geared toward children. An employee of the Saudi High Commission for Aid to Bosnia and another cell member was in telephone contact with Osama bin Laden aide and al-Qaeda operational commander Abu Zubayda. The employee’s planned immigration to the United States was going to be sponsored by Dr. Hassan Faraj, who worked at the hospital where the first New York inhalational anthrax victim, Kathy Nguyen, died. The doctor was a co-author of a leading article in JAMA about the causes of the woman’s death. Dr. Faraj lived in the building next to Al-Timimi until 1999 when he moved to Brooklyn to take an internship at Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan.
She had worked in the stockroom of Manhattan Eye, Ear and Throat Hospital (MEETH), which was a subsidiary of Lenox Hill. The doctor, Hassan Faraj, was an intern there at the time and then finished his residency at Lenox Hill in 2004. The article explained that an epidemiological study of her workplace and residence had not turned up any explanation of how she was exposed. The United States government charged Dr. Farah with immigration violations, accusing him of providing aid to a supporter of Osama Bin Laden and making false statements. In early November 2004, federal prosecutors alleged that they found shredded blueprints for a suburban Washington overpass in a bag in his Brooklyn apartment. His lawyer claimed that they were from his brother, a lecturer at an unidentified Washington-area university who had left the country. Prosecutors said that Faraj’s duties included running recruits to camps in Bosnia. In November 2004, the Daily News reported that “Computers seized at the foundation’s office in Chicago contained a deleted file stating, ‘Hassan has spent substantial amount of time with us in Bosnia . . . and had said that he is willing to do anything.'”
In an April 11, 2005 letter (provided to me by intelwire.com), an Assistant United States Attorney explained to a federal magistrate the “defendant had engaged in repeated fraud in pursuing a medical career in this country, including lying to obtain his Virginia medical license.” The Virginia medical licensing website, there is a Consent Order confirming that he had surrendered his license. His license in Connecticut was also allowed to expire that year after it had been granted.
The AUSA in the 2005 letter explained that on June 29, 2004, the defendant had been arrested on charges of falsely obtaining his United States citizenship, in violation of 18 U.S.C. Section 1425. The defendant gained his citizenship in part because he had fraudulently obtained asylum. The government summarized:
“To get asylum, the defendant claimed that he was a Bosnian citizen, that his Bosnian wife … had been killed by Serbs during the Balkan conflict, that he had been studying medicine at Sarajevo University in Bosnia, and that he had been forced to flee Bosnia due to the conflict. These claims were a sham. The defendant was not a Bosnian citizen, [his wife] never existed, the defendant never studied medicine at Sarajevo University, and the defendant was not forced to flee Bosnia (indeed, he did not even reside in Bosnia, but rather in Croatia).”
At his initial appearance on June 30, 2004, the defendant was released pursuant to an agreed upon bail amount of $100,000, co-signed by two sureties.
On August 12, 2004, the defendant was indicted on the immigration charge. Sitting outside the courtroom in November 2004 before his hearing on whether his bail would be revoked, Mr. Faraj told the New York Times reporter: “I have nothing to be afraid of. They have nothing else to do but to make things up.”
In early November 2004, the government learned that the defendant had violated his pre-trial release conditions by making false statements in his August 2004 Virginia medical licensing application. The defendant made at least two false statements to the Virginia board: (i) falsely asserting that he had not engaged in any plea bargaining in any matter; and (ii) falsely asserting that he had never been censured or warned in regard to his medical background. The February 2007 Consent Order in Virginia explains that he had been warned about his job performance on February 28, 2003.
The government argued that false statements to the Virginia board were part of a larger pattern of medical fraud by the defendant, dating back several years. In essence, the defendant satisfied two other essential medical requirements beyond the state licensing requirement through fraud: (i) fraudulently securing a required medical residency position at Lenox Hill hospital, and (ii) fraudulently securing a required certification from the Educational Committee for Foreign Medical Graduates (ECFMGO). The government contended that in 2001, the defendant told at least two significant lies to secure the residency. “First, in his personal statement and application submitted to Lenox Hill, the defendant falsely claimed that, “[f]rom January 1996 to January 1997, I did an internship in Zvijezda Hospital in Zagreb where I rotated in all departments.” The government continued: “In fact, the defendant did not intern at that hospital and was in the United States eleven months of the twelve he was supposedly doing the internship in Croatia.”
The defendant engaged in similar fraud, the government explained, in his submissions to the Educational Committee for Foreign Medical Graduates, which regulates the practice of foreign medical graduates in the United States. Among other things, the defendant falsely asserted to the ECFMG that he was an intern at yet another hospital in Croatia in 1996, the Venograd Hospital. The defendant even went so far as to submit a fraudulent certification to ECFMG that he interned at Sestre Vinogradska (Sisters of Misericordy) hospital in Croatia from September 1, 1996 to January 31, 1997.
The good doctor came under suspicion, in part, because of his support for suspected foreign terrorist Amir Abdulrazzak. Associated Press reported in November 2004 that “Sources familiar with the case said Abdulrazzak’s immigration documents were found on a computer recovered during a raid by U.S. Special Forces on a building in Bosnia housing the Saudi High Commission for Relief, an independent group linked to the Saudi Arabian government. The building, also known as “Mecca House,” was targeted after intelligence reports indicated terror suspects using it as a meeting house were planning to attack U.S. and NATO targets in Bosnia, according to a 2001 report by Army Times, a weekly for military personnel.”
In the 2005 letter to the federal magistrate, the Department of Justice formally provided additional detail:
“In the fall of 2004, the government discovered that the defendant used his fraudulently-obtained United States citizenship in January 2002 to sponsor the attempted entry into the United States by suspected foreign terrorist Amir Abdulrazzak, also known as Amir Amrush. At the time, Amir Abdulrazzak was an employee of the Saudi High Commission for Refugees (SHCR) in Bosnia. In October 2001, just a few months before the defendant’s sponsorship of Abdulrazzak, NATO forces raided the SHCR Sarajevo office where Abdulrazzak worked. The search recovered computers containing, among other things, the following information:
– confirmation of Abdulrazzak’s SHCR employment, including as acting manager of SHCR
– Abdulrazzak’s obtainment of software to hack into Hotmail e-mail accounts;
– an inventory of chemical protective clothing;
– anti-American and anti-Israeli propaganda;
– a German magazine article regarding Usama Bin Laden’s travel to Bosnia in 1993; and
– documents concerning the appearance of United States State Department identification.
Due to SHCR’s terrorism ties, the Saudi government eventually closed the SHCR Sarajevo office.”
The government claimed that “the defendant’s attempt to assist Abdulrazzak was only the most recently known example of the defendant’s support for terrorism-related organizations.”
As noted above, when he was not sponsoring Al Qaeda operatives, he was serving as a listed author on an article in a prestigious journal addressing the epidemiological puzzle of the anthrax spores that infected a fellow Lenox Hill employee Kathy Nguyen — who worked in the stock room at MEETH. It seems that one never knows what one is hiding in the closet.
Attorney Stanley L. Cohen represented Hassan Faraj. “The defendant had nothing to give and wouldn’t become one of their snitches,” Cohen told the press in November 2004. Attorney Cohen was the law partner of radical attorney Lynne Stewart, who represented blind sheik Abdel-Rahman. The blind sheik’s son, Mohammed Abdel-Rahman, was on Al Qaeda’s 3-member WMD committee. Mohammed was in frequent contact with the blind sheik’s paralegal, Post Office employee Abdel Sattar. He would use Lynne Stewart as a “dove” to send messages to his father. The blind sheik once bemusedly said that they’ll stop using doves when the US stops using secret evidence. Mohammed Abdel Rahman was captured on February 13, 2003 in Quetta, Pakistan. That quickly led to the seizure of anthrax spraydrying documents at the home of a bacteriologist and the raid on Ali Al-Timimi’s townhouse on February 26, 2003. According to the February 2007 Virginia Consent Order, two days later — “on or about February 28, 2003” — Lenox Hill had issued a warning to Dr. Faraj about his job performance.
Those massive searches and numerous arrests would be enough to distract even the most committed doctor from their work.
AS said
Man, you really swallowed that Al Qaeda thing hook line and sinker. You may be surprised if you learn who started Al Qaeda and what it really is. As for any relevance to Kathy Nguyen in this post I think my original question still holds steady.
Here it is again.
Are we really to believe the FBI “theory” that Ottillie Lundgren and kathy Nguyen died from “cross contamination”? If that were possible why did we not have many casualties along the east coast from “cross contamination”?
AS said
ED Lake,
You said that one spore could have killed Lundgren. Obviously you are no doctor of any kind. Maybe you should stick to shilling for the FBI and DOJ.
I see where you have decided what the DOJ meant to say in regards to there answers to members of the senate. That’s some real detective work there guy. I have to say you sound like quite the conspiracy theorist that you like to rant on about ad-nauseum on your silly web page. So, I assume you think there were no other “old” people that lived in New York city and Hartford Conn.
And like I said, if cross contamination killed Nguyen and Lundgren then a hell of a lot more people than those 2 would have contracted it.
AS said
What is the FBI’s explanation for the fact that the White House staff was taking Cipro prior to the Anthrax mailings?
AS said
Ed Lake said :”Why would the FBI have anything to do with that?”
It’s called investigating a crime. Something you know nothing about.
AS said
Ed Lake said: “Reportedly”
Is that like “some people say”?
Maybe you could get a job at Fox news. Or parsing what the DOJ meant to say. Or explaining why the FBI should not investigate all aspects of the Anthrax crime.