The FBI and CIA believe extremists in the US, not followers of Saudi-born Osama bin Laden, are probably behind this month's anthrax attacks, the Washington Post reported yesterday.
Senior officials also are increasingly concerned the germ-warfare attacks have diverted public attention from the larger threat posed by bin Laden and his al-Qaeda network, the paper said. They believe the main suspect in the hijacked plane strikes on America on Sept. 11 is planning a second wave of attacks against US interests at home or abroad that could come at any time, the Post said.
Both the FBI and the US Postal Inspection Service are considering a wide range of domestic possibilities, including associates of right-wing hate groups and US residents sympathetic to the causes of Islamic extremists, in the letter-borne germ attacks.
"Everything seems to lean toward a domestic source," a senior government official told the newspaper. "Nothing seems to fit with an overseas terrorist-type operation."
Based on handwriting analysis and sophisticated profiling, investigators suspect one person wrote the three letters contaminated with anthrax but have drawn no conclusions about who is behind the attacks, officials said.
In a spate of cases involving letters laced with the anthrax spores, three people have died, at least 11 others have been infected and thousands more have been tested. In the latest scares, traces of the germ-warfare agent were detected at a mail inspection center serving the US Supreme Court, in the offices of three members of the House of Representatives and at a CIA facility.
The Post reported investigators have no clear suspects and are not even certain whether there are other undetected letters that contain the potentially deadly microbe.
The George W. Bush administration has said it does not rule out a link between the anthrax and bin Laden, although it has found no hard evidence.
On Friday, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said investigators had determined that the pure, concentrated and highly dangerous anthrax delivered in a letter to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle "could be produced by a PhD microbiologist and a sophisticated laboratory."
"That does not rule out that it could be state-sponsored," Fleischer said at a briefing. "That does not rule out that it could come from a foreign location. But it certainly does expand it beyond state sponsorship or foreign locations."
There could be as many as 40 places in the US that have the ability to produce the lethal version of anthrax that was mailed to Daschle, said Senator Bob Graham, the Senate intelligence committee chairman.
The Post said the anti-Israel message in anthrax letters sent to Daschle and NBC News, and in bin Laden's statements are echoed by US extremists groups, such as Aryan Action, which praises the Sept. 11 plane attacks.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
Taiwan was ranked the fourth-safest country in the world with a score of 82.9, trailing only Andorra, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in Numbeo’s Safety Index by Country report. Taiwan’s score improved by 0.1 points compared with last year’s mid-year report, which had Taiwan fourth with a score of 82.8. However, both scores were lower than in last year’s first review, when Taiwan scored 83.3, and are a long way from when Taiwan was named the second-safest country in the world in 2021, scoring 84.8. Taiwan ranked higher than Singapore in ninth with a score of 77.4 and Japan in 10th with
SECURITY RISK: If there is a conflict between China and Taiwan, ‘there would likely be significant consequences to global economic and security interests,’ it said China remains the top military and cyber threat to the US and continues to make progress on capabilities to seize Taiwan, a report by US intelligence agencies said on Tuesday. The report provides an overview of the “collective insights” of top US intelligence agencies about the security threats to the US posed by foreign nations and criminal organizations. In its Annual Threat Assessment, the agencies divided threats facing the US into two broad categories, “nonstate transnational criminals and terrorists” and “major state actors,” with China, Russia, Iran and North Korea named. Of those countries, “China presents the most comprehensive and robust military threat
RSS