http://www.ctnow.com/news/custom/newsat3/hc-toxins0323.artmar23,0,6067447.story
Al Qaeda Close To Biological Weapons
Reports Say Program Far Advanced
March 23, 2003
By BARTON GELLMAN, Washington Post
Al-Qaeda leaders, long known to covet biological and chemical
weapons, have reached at least the threshold of production and may
already have manufactured some of them, according to a newly
obtained cache of documentary evidence and interrogations recently
conducted by the U.S. government.
Three people with access to written reports said the emerging
picture depicts the al-Qaeda biochemical weapons program as
considerably more advanced than U.S. analysts knew. The picture
sharpens daily, one official said, because translation and analysis
of the documents continues, and because the operative captured with
them began divulging meaningful information about production plans
only last week.
Leaders at the top of al-Qaeda's hierarchy, the evidence shows,
completed plans and obtained the materials required to manufacture
two biological toxins - botulinum and salmonella - and the chemical
poison cyanide.
They are also close to a feasible production plan for anthrax, a
far more lethal weapon, which kills 90 percent of untreated victims
if spread by inhalation and as many as 75 percent of those treated
when the first symptoms become evident.
Most of the new information comes from handwritten documents and
computer hard drives seized during the March 1 capture of Khalid
Shaikh Mohammed, regarded by some government analysts as al-Qaeda's
most important operational planner.
Because of Mohammed's central role in operations, one senior
official said, his apparent connection to biochemical weapons is a
"very scary" sign that al-Qaeda's efforts reach well beyond the
hypothetical.
What debriefings and documents from his computer hard drives show,
an official said, is that "he was involved in anthrax production,
and (knew) quite a bit about it."
Government experts are also filling out their picture of Ayman
Al-Zawahri, al-Qaeda's second-ranking leader, as the central figure
in overseeing and funding the biological and chemical weapons
effort.
Since the late 1990s, investigators have known that in early
experiments, al-Qaeda killed animals with homemade contact poisons
at its Derunta camp in Afghanistan. That project fell under the
command of Midhat Mursi, an Egyptian who uses the alias of Abu
Kebab and is among the most-wanted al-Qaeda operatives still at
large. Mursi is not thought to have sophisticated knowledge of
biology.
What is new in the recent documents is the fact that al-Qaeda
recruited competent scientists, including a Pakistani
microbiologist whom the officials interviewed last week 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.
U.S. officials said the evidence neither establishes nor rules out
that al-Qaeda completed manufacture. The documents are undated,
unsigned and cryptic about essential details. They do not mention
the whereabouts of actual or planned production. The documents do
not support a theory that al-Qaeda had a role in the anthrax
letters mailed in late 2001 to Senate and news media offices that
killed five people.
Mohammed has told interrogators nothing - "nothing yet," one
official emphasized - about the intended use of the weapons.
Analysts suspect an ambition to poison the food supplies of U.S.
troops in Afghanistan. Botulism or salmonella poisoning would kill
relatively few healthy young men or women but would disable many
for a time and render them vulnerable to other forms of
attack.
Two officials said this month's discoveries have changed their
minds about the significance of an abandoned laboratory found a
year ago in Kandahar, Afghanistan's largest southern city, after
U.S.-led troops drove al-Qaeda and Taliban forces from the
area.
Some government analysts believe the Afghan laboratory may have
been fully equipped and even operating before U.S. ground forces
arrived.
Some officials said the greatest danger remains that al-Qaeda will
obtain advanced biological weapons or nerve agents from a state
sponsor.