Evidence Indicates Al Qaeda Had Russian Help Developing Anthrax;

Al-Zawahiri Believed Involved in Bin Laden's Biological Weapons Program

NEW YORK, Dec. 9 /PRNewswire/ -- A U.S.-based cell of the Al Qaeda terror

network nearly launched an attack on a major target in Washington, D.C. after

September 11, Newsweek has learned. Intelligence sources say a Qaeda "sleeper

cell" in the U.S. was poised to launch the attack -- perhaps against the

Capitol Building. The sources believe that the FBI, in its sweep against visa

violators and other illegals of Mideast backgrounds, picked up members of a

"support cell" tasked with providing logistics help to the people actually

carrying out the mission. Intelligence sources say the would-be terrorists

then went underground or fled the country. Investigators have not yet been

able to identify the plotters from among the hundreds of people caught in the

FBI dragnet; they're not even sure they are still in custody, according to a

Newsweek Special Report in the December 17 issue of Newsweek (on newsstands

Monday, December 10), written by Senior Writer Jeffrey Bartholet and reported

by Newsweek Correspondents in Afghanistan, Washington and the Middle East.

(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20011209/HSSA004 )

The war in Afghanistan has produced a hodgepodge of disturbing

intelligence that investigators are still trying to sift and analyze. Perhaps

the most alarming evidence gathered so far concerns Al Qaeda efforts to

develop biological weapons. According to intelligence sources, U.S.

operatives in Afghanistan have collected information that one or more Russian

scientists were working inside Afghanistan with Al Qaeda operatives. One

well-placed source tells Newsweek that evidence from the scene indicates that

the renegade Russians were helping Al Qaeda to develop anthrax, and that

spores of the deadly disease may actually have been stockpiled by the

terrorist group. While intelligence sources say they believe any such

stockpiles were destroyed in U.S. bombing raids, it is not known how much, if

any, of the anthrax ever made it out of Afghanistan.

And the infamous Dr. Ayman Al-Zawahiri, bin Laden's closest lieutenant and

considered the brains behind Al Qaeda, may have been directly involved in the

biological program. Al-Zawahiri, may have been hit by U.S. bombs last week,

according to unconfirmed British intelligence reports. Northern Alliance

soldiers raided his house in Kabul on November 13 and a senior American

intelligence official tells Newsweek that it resembled the lair of a mad

scientist. Soldiers found grenades, blasting caps, electronic components and

"various solid and liquid substances," including white crystals and extremely

fine, silvery powders in jars and plastic bags, and mysterious liquids in

shampoo bottles labeled "special medicine." American intelligence later

collected samples from Northern Alliance colleagues and conducted chemical and

biological tests. One of the samples turned up a "positive indicator" for

Bacillus Anthracis, or anthrax. All of the samples are being retested, the

source tells Newsweek.

The Kabul house of a Pakistani nuclear scientist, Sultan Bashiruddin

Mahmood, contained sheaves of disturbing documents. These include the results

of a massive Internet search on anthrax vaccines, and a report entitled:

"Bacteria: What You Need to Know." According to intelligence sources,

investigators also found a New York Times article on Plum Island, the U.S.

Department of Agriculture's animal disease center. The Plum Island center does

research to help guard the United States "against catastrophic economic losses

caused by foreign animal disease agents accidentally or deliberately

introduced into the U.S.," its Web site explains.

Newsweek also reports that Bin Laden plied his Taliban hosts with money,

gifts and other favors. "He was always handing out $50,000 to this commander,

or $10,000 to that commander," says Mullah Alhaj Khaksar, a senior Taliban

defector. "And cars -- Afghans love cars. He would get 20 or 30 cars and

bring them in from Kandahar as a present just before an offensive. Western

intelligence agencies estimate that bin Laden funneled as much as $100 million

a year to the Taliban -- twice Afghanistan's official annual budget.

Some key terrorist fugitives appear to have had a hand in both the bombing

of the USS Cole in Yemen and the September 11 attacks. Investigators are

particularly interested in a meeting that took place in Malaysia on January 5,

2000. The list of attendees included Tawfiq bin Atash (a.k.a. Khallad) and

Fahad al-Quso, both of whom helped plan the Cole attack. Also present were

Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi, two of the September 11 hijackers, and

Ramzi Binalshibh (a.k.a. Ramzi Omar), who may have been the phantom "20th

hijacker" who couldn't get the U.S. prior to Sept. 11 because of visa

problems. Newsweek has learned that when Almihdhar and Alhazmi left Malaysia,

they flew directly to Los Angeles, where they quickly enrolled in a San Diego

flight school. That leads investigators to believe that at least some of the

planning for September 11 took place at the Malaysia meeting.

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