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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mr. Whist who wrote (187079)	9/26/2001 3:34:46 PM
From: Bob	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

flapjack: Please read this entire article and then tell me what you think we should do about this. Thanks, BobP Bin Laden's Nuclear, Chemical Connections Alarm U.S. Officials AP Wednesday, September 26, 2001 As many Americans scramble to purchase gas masks and protective suits, investigators on the global trail of suspects tied to the September 11 attacks are uncovering alarming evidence that terrorists have at least considered the possibility of using chemical or biological agents against American targets. Attorney General John Ashcroft says at least 20 people have been charged since the attacks with fraudulently obtaining licenses to transport hazardous materials, and a convicted terrorist collaborator has testified that trainees at terrorist camps in Afghanistan learned how to unleash poisons like cyanide against civilian populations. Also Wednesday, the Washington Times is reporting that Usama Bin Laden and his terrorist group, Al Qaeda, attempted to acquire weapons of mass destruction from Russian mafia sources and are believed to have a secret nuclear weapons laboratory inside Afghanistan. Calling continued terrorist threats a "clear and present danger to Americans today," Ashcroft said Tuesday that Intelligence information available to the FBI indicates a potential for additional terrorist incidents. Among the 20 nabbed for phony licenses is Nabil Al-Marabh, 34, a former Boston cab driver taken into custody in Chicago last week. The focus on trucks with hazardous materials follows disclosures that Mohamed Atta, suspected of piloting one of the two hijacked passenger airliners that struck the World Trade Center, was interested in agricultural crop-dusting planes. Ashcroft said the FBI had gathered information raising fears that agricultural aircraft could be used in a biological or chemical attack. Law enforcement authorities investigating September 11 are probing whether additional attacks using crop-dusters or hazardous chemical tankers were planned. They have issued warnings to police to guard against the hijackings of such vehicles. Authorities were also concerned about the testimony of a convicted terrorist collaborator who told a courtroom two months ago that he trained for a chemical attack at a camp inside Afghanistan where poison was unleashed to kill dogs. "In regard to targets in general ... we were speaking about America," Ahmed Ressam testified in July. Ressam said terrorist trainers discussed dispensing poison through the air intake vents of buildings to ensure the maximum amount of casualties. Ressam testified in the trial of a man accused of conspiring with him to bomb the Los Angeles airport as part of a millennium terror plot. He was convicted and became a cooperating witness in hopes of receiving a shorter sentence. Those at the camp with him in 1998 learned how to place cyanide near a building's air intake to kill as many people as they could without endangering themselves, he testified. Ressam told authorities that the camp taught him how to mix poisons with oily substances and smear them on doorknobs so those who touched them would be killed by toxins coursing through their blood. He said America, as the "enemy of Islam," was the likely target of such attacks. Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda are the U.S. government's prime suspects in the attacks. Bin Laden runs terrorist training camps in Afghanistan, U.S. investigators say. The Washington Times article quoted U.S. intelligence sources as being concerned over reports that bin Laden worked with Russian mafia groups to obtain chemical and biological weapons materials and nuclear components. The officials stressed that no hard evidence existed that such weapons had been produced. The evidence is stronger, they said, that bin Laden has been managing a laboratory somewhere in Afghanistan capable of producing nuclear or radiological weapons. Radiological weapons are bombs that kill people by spreading radioactive material. The FBI, in a document made public in 1998, reported that bin Laden's group attempted to buy enriched uranium "for the purpose of developing nuclear weapons." The Associated Press contributed to this report.