To:
From: John McAuliff <jmcauliff@igc.org>
Subject: Anthrax sources; US ultra right connection to Al Qaeda


I wonder if the anthrax source is the American ultra right we will see headlines about "Christian Terrorists"

John

FBI and CIA Suspect Domestic Extremists
           Officials Doubt Any Links to Bin Laden

           By Bob Woodward and Dan Eggen
           Washington Post Staff Writers
           Saturday, October 27, 2001; Page A01

    Top FBI and CIA officials believe that the anthrax attacks
on Washington, New York and Florida are likely the work of
one or more extremists in the United States who are probably not
connected to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda terrorist organization,
government officials said yesterday.

Senior officials also are increasingly concerned that bioterrorism
is diverting public attention from the larger threat posed by bin
Laden and his network, who are believed to be planning a second
wave of attacks against U.S. interests here or abroad that could
come at any time, officials said.

None of the 60 to 80 threat reports gathered daily by U.S. intelligence
agencies has connected the envelopes containing anthrax spores to
al Qaeda or other known organized terrorist groups, and the evidence
gleaned from the spore samples so far provides no solid to a foreign
government or laboratory, several officials said.

"Everything leans toward a domestic source," one senior official
said. "Nothing seems to fit with an overseas terrorist type operation."

The FBI and U.S. Postal Inspection Service are considering a wide
range of domestic possibilities, including associates of right-wing hate
groups and U.S. residents sympathetic to the causes of Islamic extremists.
But investigators have no clear suspects, and are not even certain whether
there are other undetected letters that contained the deadly microbe.

               But federal health officials said yesterday that a new case
of pulmonary anthrax in a man
               who worked at a State Department mail facility in Northern
Virginia has persuaded them
               that more than one contaminated letter may have been sent to
the Washington area. Health
               experts previously believed that a single letter, sent to the
office of Senate Majority Leader
               Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.), likely caused all the anthrax
reports in the Washington area as
               it came in contact with other pieces of mail in the system.

               Now the "working hypothesis would be that this is not
cross-contamination," said Jeffrey
               Koplan, director of the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention. "There is not enough
               infectious material from cross-contamination to do that."

               However, ongoing searches of truckloads of undelivered mail
to the U.S. Capitol and other
               government buildings has turned up no other letters laced
with anthrax bacteria, leading
               FBI officials to assume that the Daschle letter may still be
the only local source. Two
               employees at the U.S. Postal Service's Brentwood facility in
Washington have died from
               inhaling the lethal bacteria, and three other local postal
workers have contracted
               inhalational anthrax.

               "This envelope, Daschle's envelope, is not watertight or
airtight or anything like that," one
               law enforcement official said. "It's porous. At one or two
microns, there's plenty of room for
               the spores to escape."

               Although there is consensus at the FBI and CIA that al Qaeda
associates are planning more
               serious attacks, "nobody believes the anthrax scare we are
going through is" the next wave
               of terrorism, one senior official said. "There is no
intelligence on it and it does not fit any [al
               Qaeda] pattern."

               No links between known foreign terrorist groups and the
anthrax letters have shown up on
               the daily Top Secret Threat Matrix, which includes the latest
raw intelligence on potential
               bombings, hijackings or other terrorist attacks, one official
said. Though "lots of things are
               alarming" on the list, there is little agreement on how, when
or where an attack might be
               launched, officials said.

               FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III warned earlier this week
that additional terror attacks are
               a "distinct possibility."

               President Bush and other top U.S. officials have publicly
voiced their suspicion that bin
               Laden and al Qaeda -- accused of carrying out the Sept. 11
suicide assaults on the World
               Trade Center and Pentagon -- may be responsible for the
anthrax mailings.

               But Mueller, Attorney General John D. Ashcroft and other law
enforcement officials have
               said they have discovered no links between the mailings and
bin Laden. Authorities,
               speaking on condition of anonymity yesterday, said they are
increasingly doubtful that any
               connections will be found.

               One official said the only significant clue raising the
possibility of foreign terrorist
               involvement is the conclusion of FBI behavioral scientists,
who believe that whoever wrote
               the three letters delivered to Daschle, NBC News and the New
York Post did not learn
               English as a first language.

               But the writer could have lived in this country for some
time, and the other evidence
               gathered so far points away from a foreign source, several
officials said.

               The anti-Israel message in the anthrax letters and bin
Laden's statements are echoed by
               U.S. extremist groups, said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate
director of the Simon
               Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles.

               One group, Aryan Action, praises the Sept. 11 attacks on its
Web site and declares: "Either
               you're fighting with the jews against al Qaeda, or you
support al Qaeda fighting against the
               jews."

               Cooper said a meeting this year in Beirut was attended by
neo-Nazis and Islamic extremists
               united in their hatred of Jews. "Some extremists are now
globalized," he said.

               White supremacists have been linked with anthrax in the past,
but not in relation to an
               attack.

               Larry Wayne Harris, an Ohio microbiologist and former member
of the Aryan Nations, was
               convicted of wire fraud in 1997 after he obtained three vials
of bubonic plague germs
               through the mail. He was arrested the next year near Las
Vegas when the FBI acted on a tip
               that he was carrying anthrax. But agents found harmless
anthrax vaccine in the trunk of his
               car.

               Cooper and officials at the Southern Poverty Law Project,
which monitors U.S. hate groups,
               said they have seen no evidence of a domestic group capable
of launching a sophisticated
               anthrax attack.

               One of the challenges that a would-be terrorist faces is
learning how to alter the anthrax so
               that it will float in the air and disperse widely. The
Washington Post reported this week that
               the spores in the Daschle letter had been treated with a
chemical additive using technology
               so sophisticated that it almost certainly came from the
United States, Iraq or the former
               Soviet Union.

               White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said yesterday, however,
that investigators believe a
               broad range of people are capable of the crime. "The
qualityanthrax sent to Senator
               Daschle's office could be produced by a Ph.D. microbiologist
and a sophisticated
               laboratory," he told reporters.

               U.S. officials said the evidence so far does not point to
either Russia or Iraq. However, FBI
               checks of private and government laboratories in the United
States have not yet revealed
               any missing anthrax stockpiles, disgruntled scientists or
other suspicious circumstances, one
               top official said.

               Koplan, the CDC director, said he suspects more than one
letter was involved based on his
               understanding of how difficult it is to contract inhalational
anthrax. To cause the disease,
               8,000 to 10,000 anthrax spores must enter a person's lungs.

               Although some officials said it is possible for that many
spores to have sloughed off the
               Daschle letter onto another piece of mail, Koplan said that
is hard to imagine. "We all think
               that would be highly unlikely to virtually impossible," he
said.

               Koplan speculated that there may have been multiple mailings
and that "there may be
               several places within the federal government that have been
deemed targets."

               By contrast, the minuscule amounts of anthrax bacteria
discovered at Walter Reed Army
               Medical Center and the CIA "may well represent
cross-contamination," Koplan said.

               William C. Patrick, who is retired from the U.S. Army
installation at Fort Detrick, Md., said
               extensive studies show that once anthrax spores hit the
ground or other surfaces they stick,
               and are very hard to "re-aerosolize.

               There's a theoretical possibility that a few spores picked up
by an envelope might cause a
               skin anthrax infection, but a case of inhalational anthrax
"is highly unlikely," Patrick said.

               Staff writers David Brown, Ceci Connolly, Ellen Nakashima and
Peter Slevin and researcher
               Madonna Lebling contributed to this report.

               © 2001 The Washington Post Company