http://www.ctnow.com/news/custom/newsat3/hc-toxins0323.artmar23,0,6067447.storyAl Qaeda Close To Biological Weapons
Reports Say Program Far AdvancedMarch 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.