His [Ali Mohamed's] new friends back home in California took for granted that Mr. Mohamed was helping the Central Intelligence Agency in its proxy war against the Soviets in Afghanistan. At the time, the anti-Soviet jihad was a world-wide cause among Muslims. "Everyone in the community knew he was working as a liaison between the CIA and the Afghan cause, and everyone was sympathetic," says Ali Zaki, a San Jose, Calif. obstetrician who was close to Mr. Mohamed and his American wife, a medical technician named Linda Sanchez. The CIA declines to comment.
Nor were Muslims in California surprised when Mr. Mohamed showed up there with Egyptian Islamic Jihad leader Ayman Zawahri [sic] on a fund-raising tour in the early 1990s, says Dr. Zaki, who co-hosted Dr. Zawahri on the trip. Dr. Zawahri, an Egyptian surgeon and now al Qaeda's No. 2 leader, has been known for years as one of secular Egypt's most-wanted foes.
Dr. Zaki says he didn't know Dr. Zawahri's real identity when he visited California. Mr. Mohamed had described him as "a physician who was taking care of over one million people in Afghanistan," Dr. Zaki says. "I was asked to escort him while he did fund raising for the Kuwaiti Red Crescent. Was that a crime?"
I think I've read that Dr. Zawahiri was still visiting this country and fund-raising in the mid-90's.
Fred Mertz says this WSJ article was posted here on FR on Monday, but neither of us has been able to find the thread. It's the same article in which Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman is reported to have told one of his co-conspirators: "The one who killed Kennedy was trained for three years."
Interesting. It it likely a domestic terrorist wouldn't have to look thru the papers to know who people in Congress were, as they would already know who was who in our govt. In otherwards they were picked at random. Here's the rub though: because the media tends to focus on Democrats and ignore Republicans, that policy might be the very thing that resulted in the anthrax being sent mostly to Democrats.
Actually, an off-the-shelf HEPA filter (available at Home Depot or just about anywhere else) will trap >99% of anthrax spores. The perp is perfectly free to work at home as long as he keeps a HEPA air filter running nearby, and tidies up after a work session with a HEPA-equipped vacuum cleaner. Throw away the used filters and the FBI could swab his apartment for anthrax without finding anything.
Question for Oxford, CT police: What kind of vacuum cleaner did Mrs. Lundgren own? A HEPA-equipped one? If so, they need to check its filter.
The building has been closed since a few days after a letter laced with anthrax was opened in the South Dakota senator's office on Oct. 15, exposing over two dozen office workers to the potential germ warfare agent.
NO wonder the postal people are going postal...what if you worked in an environment that had the SAME anthrax but don't seem to get this type of clean up...