Free Republic

Qaeda Letters Are Said to Show Pre-9/11 Anthrax Plans WASHINGTON, May 20 -Al Qaeda operatives in Afghanistan began to assemble the equipment necessary to build a rudimentary biological weapons laboratory before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, letters released by the Defense Department show.... The letters are among the documents recovered in late 2001 after the invasion of Afghanistan that United States intelligence officials have frequently cited as evidence that Al Qaeda was working to develop biological weapons.The letters...detail a visit by an unnamed Qaeda scientist to a laboratory at an unspecified location where he was shown "a special confidential room"...

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...