Interrogation: Al Qaeda and Anthrax

Newsweek ^ | 4/8/2004 | Mark Hosenball

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According to documents obtained by NEWSWEEK, Al Qaeda mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed told U.S. investigators after his capture last year that a high-ranking Qaeda lieutenant known as Khallad originally was "selected" to participate in the 9/11 attacks as a "bouncer"--one of the musclemen assigned to corral and subdue passengers on a hijacked plane. Khallad, a one-legged Yemeni also known as Tawfiq bin Attash, attended a January 2000 "summit" meeting in Malaysia at which he allegedly went over plans for 9/11 with two future hijackers, Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi. After the meeting, Almihdhar and Alhazmi traveled to the United States. But Khallad apparently was unable to get a U.S. visa; instead, authorities say, he went on to mastermind the October 2000 suicide attack on the USS Cole in Yemen. He was finally captured in Karachi, Pakistan, a year ago.

According to other reports generated during U.S. interrogations of "Hambali," an Indonesian terrorist leader captured in Thailand last summer, a Malaysian named Yazid Sufaat, who helped organize and host the Kuala Lumpur terror "summit," traveled to Afghanistan in June 2001 for a one-month training course. Hambali claimed that, after training, Sufaat worked with him "supporting" a Qaeda "anthrax program" in the Afghan city of Kandahar. After 9/11, Hambali says, he again met Sufaat and had discussions about "continuing the anthrax program in Indonesia." Though U.S. intelligence officials say there is evidence that Al Qaeda was interested in acquiring chemical, biological and atomic weapons, there is little if any proof that the bin Laden network ever acquired weapons of mass destruction other than poisons like cyanide and ricin. A CIA spokesman had no comment on the interrogations of Mohammed and Hambali.

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