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In early June 2003, a Central Intelligence Agency ("CIA") report concluded that the reason for Mohammed Atta's and Zacarias Moussaoui's inquiries into cropdusters was for the contemplated use in dispersing biological agents such as anthrax. An early September 2003 Newsweek article included a rumor by a Taliban source that at a meeting in April 2003 Bin Laden was planning an "unbelievable" biological attack, the plans for which had suffered a setback upon the arrest of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed ("KSM") the previous month in Rawalpindi, Pakistan.    Many people have argued that a US-based Al Qaeda operative is behind the earlier Fall...

WEBBERS FALLS (OK) — Paul Gould is a pilot in a career that could be flying into the sunset. His dad was a crop duster; he didn't want the same for his son. Paul loved the work too much. Still does, but worries at 49 who will take over when his heart gets weak or eyesight fuzzy. With the culture of the American family farm changing, and the next generation of crop dusters reluctant to stay in a profession their fathers inherited from their grandfathers, the industry is at a crossroads. Crop dusting, a job that is so much a...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Top al Qaeda planners of the Sept. 11 hijackings might have canceled the attack had they known that Zacarias Moussaoui -- chosen by Osama bin Laden as one of the pilots -- had been arrested, the commission investigating the attacks said on Thursday. The commission said news of Moussaoui's Aug. 16, 2001, arrest did not reach bin Laden and top al Qaeda planners like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed before Sept. 11. "According to (attack coordinator Ramzi bin al-Shaibah), had bin Laden and KSM learned prior to 9/11 that Moussaoui had been detained, they might have canceled the operation,"...

Posted on Sun, Apr. 21, 2002 BY JENNIFER BABSON jbabson@herald.com BOCA CHICA KEY - They worry about allergies and immune system difficulties and ailments yet to be diagnosed. A few bolted for points north; others shuttered windows and stayed inside. Word that the U.S. Army was conducting biological and chemical detection tests off Key West last week -- using a crop duster to spray what it says are benign substances over a small swath of the Gulf -- set alarm bells ringing for some on this island chain. ''Monday I had my house closed up all day and the air...

Sources tell TIME that U.S. officials suspect that bin Laden conspirators may have been planning to disperse biological or chemical agents from cropdusting planes Saturday, Sep. 22, 2001 New York -- U.S. law enforcement officials have found a manual on the operation of cropdusting equipment while searching suspected terrorist hideouts, government sources tell TIME magazine in an issue out on Monday, Sept. 24th. The discovery has added to concerns among government counterterrorism experts that the bin Laden conspirators may have been planning — or may still be planning —to disperse biological or chemical agents from a cropdusting plane normally used ...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The FBI has questioned more than 3,000 pilots and aircraft owners, most of them in the past year, amid persistent concerns that terrorists might use crop-dusting planes to mount a biological or chemical attack, newly released documents show. The interviews have not produced any arrests, according to a senior law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity, but have resulted in terrorism investigations that are still under way. The effort, outlined in documents submitted to the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks, is more extensive than previously disclosed and underscores how seriously the threat is viewed...

Army Announces the Sixth Series of Weather Radar Tests March 17 to 23 3/15/2004 5:01:00 PM -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To: City Desk Contact: Cynthia O. Smith of the U.S. Army, 703-697-5344 WASHINGTON, March 15 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The United States Army, in conjunction with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Lincoln Laboratory, Federal Aviation Administration and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, will commence the sixth in a series of tests designed to provide data for the development of an early warning system for chemical and biological events. The tests will be conducted in the Canadian River Valley March 17 - 23. During...

<p>The government seems hell-bent in its effort to limit the suspects in the anthrax mystery to a domestic loner. First, the FBI's behavioral analysis came up with the profile of a lone wolf based on its "exacting handwriting and linguistic analysis" of one letter that contained 18 words and another that contained 27 words. It suggested that the writer of these two letters was a single disgruntled American, not connected to the jihadist terrorists of Sept. 11 (even though the letter used the plural pronoun "we" and began with an underlined "9-11").</p>

A BRITISH terror suspect held by the Americans at Guantanamo Bay has confessed to plotting to kill Tony Blair in an anthrax strike on the Commons, it was claimed last night. Moazzam Begg, one of nine Britons detained at Camp Delta in Cuba, has agreed to plead guilty over an elaborate Al Qaeda plot as part of the deal returning him to the UK, his lawyer said. The 36-year- old father- of-three has allegedly confessed to planning to fly an unmanned plane from Suffolk to London and drop the bacteria over Westminster. The confession would be in exchange for a...

<p>WASHINGTON — The FBI is working on a theory that a previously unmentioned man was meant to be the 20th hijacker in the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, Fox News has confirmed.</p> <p>"We are fairly confident we know who No. 20 is," a top law-enforcement official told USA Today, which first reported the story.</p>

A Second Attack Planned French Authorities: Moussaoui Plotted Another Series of Attacks By Brian Ross and David Scott Sept. 5— Zacharias Moussaoui, a French citizen of Moroccan descent, was part of a second wave of suicide hijackings planned for early 2002 in Europe and the United States, French intelligence authorities told ABCNEWS, and they say the U.S. Justice Department is making a mistake in identifying him as the so-called 20th hijacker in the Sept. 11 attacks. <! -- begin print page / send page box --> Moussaoui is the only person charged by the United States government as an...

WASHINGTON - Zacarias Moussaoui, the only defendant U.S. prosecutors have charged with complicity in the Sept. 11 attacks, contends he was not part of that day's hijackings but was preparing for a later operation outside the United States, court papers revealed Tuesday. In a separate development in the case, a federal appeals court in Richmond, Va. ordered that the public and news media be admitted to portions of a June 3 court session to consider whether Moussaoui can interview an al-Qaida member also held as a prisoner. The government had argued the hearing should be closed because classified information would...

<p>WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Jailed Al-Qaida member Zacarias Moussaoui says he was part of a planned second-wave terrorist attack outside the United States after Sept. 11 2001, lawyers assisting him said in declassified documents made public Tuesday. The disclosure in papers unsealed by a federal appeals court in Richmond, Va., is the most detailed acknowledgment by Moussaoui that he was preparing to participate in an attack when he was detained in the Twin Cities on Aug. 16, 2001. He was taken into custody after arousing suspicious while learning to fly a jumbo jetliner at an Eagan flight school.</p>

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Sept. 25 — The government has asked a judge to dismiss all charges against terrorism suspect Zacarias Moussaoui, according to a motion released Thursday. Prosecutors said they made the extraordinary request to hasten an appeal challenging the defendant’s right to question al-Qaida prisoners.

Barely two weeks before his arrest outside an Eagan hotel, Zacarias Moussaoui inquired about the University of Minnesota's crop-dusting program, a move suggesting the terror suspect might have considered staying in the state for a year or more. Moussaoui e-mailed the university's Crookston, Minn., campus on July 31, 2001, seeking information on a "short course you offer to become a crop duster (6 month, 1 years max.)" Moussaoui made a fleeting reference to the e-mail in a court filing late last month in Alexandria, Va., where he is awaiting trial on six federal charges, including conspiracy to commit air piracy...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The United States obtained a slightly altered indictment against accused Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui, updating information on financial transactions that the government contends helped fund the terrorist attacks. An allegation in the original indictment that Moussaoui and alleged hijacker leader Mohammed Atta looked into how to use planes for crop-dusting also was removed. The new indictment, issued Wednesday, adds that suspected hijacker Fayez Ahmed used a credit card in Florida to obtain $4,900 from an account that Moussaoui has been linked to, according to the government. The new indictment also adds Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia to...

The Saudi government paid off al-Qaida in exchange for immunity from terror attacks. Saudi princes knew in advance about the Sept. 11 attacks. Most of the Saudi officials who assisted al-Qaida all died mysteriously soon thereafter. The revelations in Gerald Posner's new book Why America Slept are an astonishing reminder of just how much we still don't know about Sept. 11 and its planning. But there is also plenty that we think we know but don't. I'm not talking about shoddy conspiracy theories (that Jews were warned not to show up for work at the World Trade Center, for example)...