On November 20, 2002, DXer published an essay on the website Cryptome that stated: “Bin Laden purchased anthrax a few years ago from a supplier in North Korea.”
Al Qaeda, Anthrax and Ayman
means, opportunities, motive, and modus operandi
http://cryptome.org/alqaeda-anthrax.htm
DXer wrote:
“Bin Laden’s group was able to get the anthrax germ from another “factory” in Southeast Asia, which supplied it to the Indonesian-based Islamic Moro Front, a terror group closely associated with bin Laden.
The price for the anthrax spores, al-Najjar said, was $3,685, “plus shipping costs.”
But his argument was lost amidst the claim that it was the Ames strain of anthrax that was used — and that strain originated in a cow in Texas.
Now that we’ve seen that Dugway, for example, mistakenly sent virulent Ames to 78 labs, however, maybe people will take to heart that the fact that it was Ames did not resolve the issue of who sent the Fall 2001 anthrax — and did not exclude Al Qaeda.
One source DXer cited, who had been on the shura council of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad shura (adivisory council) Al-Najjar, claimed in testimony that the anthrax spores had cost $3,685 “plus shipping costs.”
He also has long relied upon another EIJ shura member, Mabruk, to similar effect. He emphasized the revelations of defense counsel in that trial, Montasser Al-Zayat, that Zawahiri planned to use anthrax against US targets to retaliate for the imprisonment of the blind sheik.
DXer: The Blind Sheik’s Lawyer Montasser Al-Zayat Announced In 1999 That Ayman Zawahiri Would Use Anthrax Against US Targets To Retaliate For Imprisonment Of Senior EIJ Leaders, Most Notably Blind Sheik Abdel-Rahman
Posted by Lew Weinstein on June 3, 2013
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2013/06/03/dxer-the-blind-sheiks-lawyer-montasser-al-zayat-announced-in-1999-that-ayman-zawahiri-would-use-anthrax-against-us-targets-to-retaliate-for-imprisonment-of-senior-eij-leaders-most-notably-blind/
Here is an excerpt from DXer’s 2002 essay which contained dozens of hyperlinked sources.
“Means and Opportunity: Al Qaeda’s Biochem Program
Bin Laden purchased anthrax a few years ago from a supplier in North Korea.(6) The Moro Front, an Indonesian radical group associated with Bin Laden, arranged for the purchase, but Bin Laden’s own name was reportedly on the purchase order.(7) Dr. Ayman Zawahiri had a list of 100 US and Israeli targets to use it against.(8) Thus, while the question of the source of the Ames strain used in the Amerithrax mailings is problematic and addressed more fully below, Al Qaeda’s acquisition of anthrax for the purpose of using it as a weapon against the US has been known for a long time. Indeed, Vice President Cheney and his staff knew to take Cipro on 9/11, a full week before the first anthrax letter was mailed.(9)”
“6. Yousef Bodansky, Bin Laden: The Man Who Declared War On America, at 326.
7. “Osama bought a batch for 10G,” The New York Post, October 24, 2001.
“Bin Laden Bought Anthrax, E-Coli and Salmonella, Aide Tells Court,” The Mirror, October 25, 2001.
Simon Reeve, The New Jackals: Ramzi Yousef, Osama Bin Laden and the Future of Terrorism, at 262 (1999).
8. “Did Bin Laden buy bioterror: trial testimony says he did,” San Francisco Chronicle, October 21, 2001.”
Here are excerpts from the newspaper articles he cites discussing the court testimony:
Did bin Laden buy bioterror? / 1999 testimony says he did
Erin McCormick, Lance Williams, Chronicle Staff Writers Published 4:00 am, Sunday, October 21, 2001
http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Did-bin-Laden-buy-bioterror-1999-testimony-2866900.php
Evidence in an Egyptian terrorism trial two years ago included claims that Osama bin Laden already had dangerous biological agents in his arsenal.
Moreover, a ranking terrorist affiliated with bin Laden told a journalist during that trial that the Saudi-born financier of terror and his top aide, Islamic Jihad leader Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri, had purchased biological and chemical agents and drawn up a list of 100 U.S. and Israeli targets on which to unleash them.
Testimony in that trial and other court proceedings in the United States have told of bin Laden and his operatives negotiating to buy such deadly materials as anthrax, the Ebola virus and bomb-grade uranium for creating weapons of mass destruction.
Osama bought a batch for 10G
http://nypost.com/2001/10/24/osama-bought-a-batch-for-10g/
By NILES LATHEM
October 24, 2001 — WASHINGTON – Terror master Osama bin Laden bought samples of anthrax by mail from shady laboratories in Eastern Europe and Asia for as little as $10,000, a former follower has told authorities in Egypt.
The astonishing claim of how easily – and cheaply – the world’s most wanted terrorist was able to acquire anthrax and other deadly germ agents was made in a 143-page confession of former extremist Ahmad Ibrahim al-Najjar at a recent trial of more than 100 members of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad.
Al-Najjar, serving a life sentence in Egypt, was among several Islamic Jihad operatives arrested in Albania in 1999 and brought home to Egypt to face trial for a series of attempts to destabilize the pro-Western government of President Hosni Mubarak.
According to translated accounts of his testimony obtained by The Post, al-Najjar told authorities there was nothing cloak-and-dagger about bin Laden’s transactions involving deadly biological agents.
“Factories” in the Czech Republic and elsewhere in Eastern Europe supplied deadly bacteria, including e-coli and salmonella, by mail without checking the identities of the purchasers as long as bin Laden’s agents paid $7,500 up front, al-Najjar said.
Bin Laden’s group was able to get the anthrax germ from another “factory” in Southeast Asia, which supplied it to the Indonesian-based Islamic Moro Front, a terror group closely associated with bin Laden.
The price for the anthrax spores, al-Najjar said, was $3,685, “plus shipping costs.”
U.S. officials say they don’t yet know whether bin Laden is responsible for the anthrax scare gripping the nation, although President Bush and other senior officials say they are suspicious.
Bin Laden is known to have contacts with Iraqi officials and mafia groups in former Soviet republics – nations that have extensive chemical-and biological-weapons programs and that are known to have experimented with anthrax.
***
During the 1999 Egyptian trial of 107 suspected terrorists, Mabruk talked to a reporter from the Arabic-language newspaper al-Hayat about al Qaeda’s “biological and chemical weapons.”
“He said to me that al-Zawahiri and bin Laden (had purchased) the weapons from countries in Eastern Europe,” reporter Mohammed Salah told The Chronicle in a phone interview from Cairo.
Mabruk spoke of bin Laden and al-Zawahiri having a list of 100 targets worldwide, all related to the United States or Israel, Salah reported.
“This was a big scoop in my opinion, but the Americans didn’t read this article,” Salah said. “They come now to try to understand what happened (in court) two years ago.”
During the trial, Egyptian military investigators told the court that defendants had reported the purchase of dangerous biological agents by bin Laden associates, through the mail, for as little as $3,865, “shipping included.”
Egyptian government documents detailing the confessions, described in the Arabic press, said that factories in Eastern Europe offered to sell the viruses that cause Ebola and salmonella poisoning to bin Laden’s associates — without asking what the group planned to do with them.
The accused terrorists also claimed to have made agreements to buy “samples of anthrax” from a factory in Southeast Asia and a culture of the paralyzing botulinum bacteria from a lab in the Czech Republic for $7,500.
CASE CLOSED ... what really happened in the 2001 anthrax attacks? 