Vanguards of Conquest: Zawahiri's Decade-Long Quest to Weaponize Anthrax

Ross E. Getman

Ayman Zawahiri has been on a quest to weaponize anthrax for use against US targets for well over a decade now -- one confidante released from an Egyptian prison says he had made 15 attempts over that period to recruit the necessary expertise. There is every reason to think he has now succeeded.

    Bin Laden reportedly first purchased anthrax in 1997 from a supplier in North Korea. The Moro Islamic Liberation Front ("MILF"), a Southeast Asia radical group associated with and funded by Bin Laden, arranged for the purchase. Al Qaeda's anthrax researcher Yazid Sufaat was a member of JI (Islamic Group). The report first appeared in March 1999 in Arabic newspapers in connection with the confession of a senior Egyptian islamist militant, Ahmad Ibrahim al-Najjar. Al-Najjar had served and then betrayed Zawahiri in Yemen. Al Qaeda's purchase of anthrax was widely reported around the world in English-speaking papers in late October 2001. The alleged purchase then was promptly overlooked by the media until a CIA assessment was made public in January 2003.

    The MILF, the largest Islamic separatist group in the Philippines with 15,000 members, is linked to al-Qaeda with members that have trained in Afghanistan. The MILF has ties with, and has trained, members of the JI (Islamic Group). According to Ambassador Albert del Rosario, the Ambassador of the Republic of the Philippines to the United States, the MILF ( like the Abu Sayyaf) had received funds from a purported charity, the International Islamic Relief Organization ("IIRO"). The charity was established in the Philippines by Osama bin Laden's brother-in-law, Mohammed Jamal Khalifa.

    An Egyptian journalist with the newspaper al-Hayat, Salah, confirmed the purchase to the San Francisco Chronicle in October 2001. He described his interview with a high-ranking member of the Islamic Jihad, Ahmad Salamah Mabruk. Mabruk was among 100+ defendants in the 1999 Egyptian terrorism trial and was Zawahiri's confidante and right-hand man. Mabruk had been imprisoned for 6 months in Russia with Zawahiri shortly before the purchase of anthrax. Salah claimed that Mabruk revealed that Bin Laden and al-Zawahiri had compiled a list of 100 targets worldwide that were linked to United States or Israel. Salah told the Chronicle that in his opinion this was a big scoop in 1999, but the Americans did not read his report.

    Mabruk, who was the head of Egyptian Islamic Jihad's military operations (such as Atef and KSM later would be), told Al-Hayat the plan was on a computer disk confiscated from him during his arrest by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency ("CIA") in Azerbaijan. The disk was later reportedly handed over to the Egyptian authorities. Mabruk said he assumed that, upon learning of his arrest, Bin Laden and Zawahiri would change the dates and locations for the attacks outlined in the plan.

    In late October 2001, top Administration officials -- including CIA Director Tenet -- surmised that Al Qaeda was responsible for the anthrax mailings, according to Woodward's Bush at War:

"They turned to the hot topic of anthrax. The powder in the letter mailed to Senator Daschle's office had been found to be potent, prompting officials to suggest its source was likely an expert capable of producing the bacteria in huge amounts. Tenet said, 'I think it's AQ -- meaning Al Qaeda.'

'I think there's a state sponsor involved. It's too well thought-out, the powder's too well refined. It might be Iraq, it might be Russia, it might be a renegade scientist, perhaps from Iraq or Russia.'"

    According to Road to Al Qaeda, by prominent Islamist lawyer Al-Zayat, the disc contained " the names of group members all over the world. The computer revealed to the authorities the location of group members living overseas, including new members that were not known to the Egyptian authorities, as well as some information about Al-Qaeda members." Al-Zayat, who represented some of the defendants, said in 1999 that Bin Laden's organization had biological and chemical weapons and would likely use such weapons against the United States. Al Zayat once was the lawyer for both Zawahiri and the blind sheik.

    Al Zayat estimated that 20 Al Qaeda members had been extradited up to 1999 due to US pressure. He expected that Al Qaeda would resort to biological and chemical weapons because of this constant extradition pressure:

"The United States will intensify its pursuit of Bin Laden and al-Zawahiri in the coming stage to arrest them. It is not an easy task, especially in light of information that Bin Laden's organization has biological and chemical weapons. I believe that he will resort to these weapons and use them against US targets because of the constant pressure on him."

By September 2001, according to CIA Director Tenet, 70 Al Qaeda/Egyptian Islamic Jihad members had been extradited or rendered.   

    The question of the source of the Ames strain used in the Amerithrax mailings is problematic. The surest indication that the Administration credits these claims concerning Al Qaeda's acquisition of anthrax for the purpose of using it as a weapon is that Vice President Cheney and his staff allegedly knew to take Cipro on 9/11. That was a full week before the first anthrax letter was mailed. An unclassified CIA report in January 2003 vaguely summarized the information available from open sources:

"A senior Bin Ladin associate on trial in Egypt in 1999 claimed his group had chemical and biological weapons. Documents and equipment recovered from al-Qa'ida facilities in Afghanistan show that Bin Ladin has a more sophisticated biological weapons research program than previously discovered."

      Zawahiri traveled widely in his attempts to obtain and weaponize anthrax and other terroristic missions -- he traveled to Malaysia, Singapore, Yemen, Iraq, Russia, Great Britain and United States. For example, Zawahiri traveled to the US in 1991 and 1995 under an alias (though the dates are disputed). He went to California, New York, D.C., and according to some reports, Texas. He may have travelled to Oklahoma City. Zawahiri sometimes was accompanied by two brothers, a New Jersey pharmacist and a California doctor, Ali Zaki (a former classmate who denies knowing who Zawahiri was). They were joined by a former US Army sergeant and key Al Qaeda operative, Ali Mohammed. In Santa Clara, Ayman reportedly stated at the home of Ali Mohammed, even though Mohammed had recently been subpoenaed to testify about what he knew about Bin Laden's activities. The respected Dr. Zaki says he was a good friend of Ali Mohammed and that it was widely known that Ali Mohammed was a liaison between the islamists in Afghanistan and the CIA.

     Zawahiri went to Russia in 1996 where he was imprisoned for 6 months. (Zawahiri was arrested in Dagestan after he tried to enter Chechnya; the Russians never learned his real identity.) Two men joined the local islamists in urging the release of the three. One was Tharwat Salah Shehata, who would later serve briefly as head of al Jihad. In 1993, Shehata had gone to Yemen and, after the attempt on the Egyptian Prime Minister Sidqi's life, left for Sudan. He went to Afghanistan in 1995, together with El- Zawahiri and Bin Laden. He was a key figure in Bin Laden's organization and ran its Civilian Branch.    

     Al Qaeda's interest in biological or chemical weapons was perhaps first publicly indicated by United States District Court Judge Kevin Duffy, who spoke of the planned use of cyanide in sentencing the defendants responsible for the first attempt to bring down the World Trade Center in 1993. The plotters hoped that one tower would topple into the second. Under one view of the evidence, cyanide gas released in the explosion then would consume the trapped occupants of the other tower. (Others credibly argue, such as in an article in Slate, that this interpretation is mistaken.)

    Some argue that Al Qaeda's interest in biochemical weapons also was evidenced in Sudan. The CIA's "Anonymous" author, who headed the Osama Bin Laden counterterrorist effort at the CIA in 1999 wrote:"Press reports have suggested that ... that the Sudanese have created a research institute for chemical and biological warfare funded by Osama bin Laden. ... U.S. intelligence officials have reported that bin Laden has provided support for a Sudanese biological weapons program. This allegation was confirmed by the British Minister of State for Defence, George Robertson, in an on-the-record interview."  From Richard Clarke's 2004 Against All Enemies, it is clear that the Clinton Administration also credited the reports.

      A 1997 Arab newspaper account discussed Ayman Zawahiri's role in the plans for a "chemical and bacterial weapons factory that the Sudanese government has established in the Khartoum Bahri suburb of Kubar, in cooperation with the Iraqi government." President Clinton bombed the plant in 1998 and was later criticized when there was insufficient proof made public that it had been used to make biochemical weapons as well as pharmaceuticals. Critics claim it was used only to make pharmaceuticals. Before the bombing, an operative allegedly found a precursor to the manufacture of VX in the dirt outside the factory.

     The CIA's "Anonymous" author further explains:

"Al Qaeda's attempts to recruit scientists and technicians to help develop CBRN capability have focused on Muslims, but they also have included hiring non-Muslims in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union (FSU) -- another example of bin Laden dealing with the devil to defeat a greater evil. Using Arab Afghans as recruiters, bin Laden arranged, according to Milan's Corrier della Sera, for seven Saudis and one Egyptian educated in pharmacy, medicine and microbiology in Romania and Hungary to be trained in Afghanistan by 'a number of Ukrainian experts (chemists and biologists)' in the area of 'poisons and toxins.'"

"The training program includes the preparation of more sophisticated explosive devices and kits with toxins and chemical agents (such as sarin). There will be special courses on establishing 'lethal biological cultures' using substances readily available on the commercial market or in university laboratories. Once they have completed their training the millionaire terrorist [bin Laden] intends to send the militants back to their native counties or infiltrate them into Europe." 

    In Sudan, Bin Laden broadened efforts to bring Vanguards of Conquest back into the EIJ fold. It initially had been set up by Ahmed Hussain Agizah and split off from Zawahiri. Agizah had a falling out with Zawahiri in 1993 over the arrest of 800 Vanguards members in Egypt. By 1995, Zawahiri was serving as the group's spokesman in connection with the attempted assassination of President Mubarak in Ethiopia. In 1997, the US State Department named Zawahiri as leader of the Vanguards of Conquest group. (Agizah was extradited from Sweden in December 2001). 

    At the same time the pro-Bin Laden Jihad elements obtained the anthrax in 1997, they diversified the targets. The group would no longer limit its tactics to the blowing up of installations. They launched joint action with other groups and organizations, both local groups and others operating outside their countries. The group has maintained the goal of seizing power in Egypt since the coup planned by Jihad in 1981 despite the Egyptian government's success in cracking down on the group.

    Upon the merger in 1998, the most senior planners in Al Qaeda relating to tactics and biological weapons were Egyptian Islamic Jihad, to include Ayman Zawahiri, Mohammed Atef, and Midhat Mursi aka Abu Khabab. Although the CIA's "Anonymous" prefers to give Bin Laden top billing, Zawahiri is the real "brains" behind Al Qaeda -- at least as to its anthrax production program -- not Bin Laden.

    Egyptian Abu Yasir -- known as Taha --the blind sheik's successor as leader of the Islamic Group, also was a senior member of Al Qaeda. Taha signed the 1998 statement declaring war on the United States along with Bin Laden and Zawahiri. While the US government views Al Qaeda and the Egyptian Islamic Jihad as having merged in 1998, they have essentially been the same organization, with the merger having occurred some years before that. Formerly the head of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, Zawahiri assumed the #2 position after Bin Laden upon a merger of some of Islamic Jihad into Al Qaeda. The Vanguards of Conquest called creation of the front "a step forward and in the right direction, but urged Bin Laden to "expand its membership to include other tendencies on the scene... [and] all colors of the fundamentalist movement wishing to join such alliance in the Arab and Islamic worlds."

    Some might say EIJ by this time was New Vanguards of Conquest by another name -- with Zawahiri its leader and spokesperson. The Egyptian government claimed that Yasser al- Sirri managed and financed the group New Vanguards of Conquest from his London home while on the public dole.

   In Afghanistan, Zawahiri was assisted by Midhat Mursi (alias Abu Khabab), who reportedly is expert in sarin gas production. An Egyptian chemical engineer, he ran the camp named Abu Khabab. Abu Khabab's whereabouts are unknown. Al Qaeda's experimentation with its chemical weapons has been featured on the nightly television news picturing a dog being put to death. One disturbing scene of death aired showed Al Qaeda's capability with what appears to be cyanide or a liquid nerve agent.

Judith Miller, who saw the hours of tapes obtained by CNN, said on Lehrer News Hour:

"JUDITH MILLER: I was struck by the fact that even the experts that I talked to could not agree on what the chemical was that seemed to kill these puppies. They were three different dogs, and they seemed to be killed by three different agents, but we're not really sure what it was.
***
JUDITH MILLER: These shots of the demonstrations of the killing of the puppies were not dated. And I also don't know, for example, what the delivery vehicle was. In one of the first tapes a man enters the room who, by the way, is not wearing protective clothing, he seems to drop a canister on the floor and then exit quickly. And then a liquid oozes across the floor. But in the other tapes, the dog is killed through a fine mist. And in the third he's placed in a box in which he's exposed to something, we don't know what it is.

But, you know, as the anthrax letters should have taught us, delivery is not that crucial. It's crucial if one wants to kill mass numbers of people. But if one wanted to kill people in a room, or in an office building, most of the experts that I talked to were afraid that al-Qaeda had come very close to developing that kind of capability at the time that the Americans decided to invade Afghanistan."

   Ahmed Ressam testified at his trial in New York that he participated in experiments using cyanide gas pumped into an office building ventilation system at a training camp run by bin Laden in Afghanistan. Abu Khabab camp was within the Darunta Camp, which also included the Assadalah Abdul Rahman camp, operated by the son of blind cleric Omar Abdel Rahman. According to Richard Clarke in his testimony before the 9/11 Commission, operatives arrested in Jordan in December 1999 disclosed a plot to use chemical weapons in a crowded movie theater. The week those plotters were convicted in April 2004, a plot to use truck bombs and chemicals was disrupted. Officials said that apparently a plot to use poison gas on the American embassy was also thwarted.

    Zawahiri's wrath against the United States is thought to have sharpened in 1998 upon the extradition to Egypt of the islamic jihad members from Albania. The trial of the 107 defendants in the "Albanian returnees" in 1999 was the biggest trial of militant islamists since the assassination of Sadat. Zawahiri was sentenced to death in absentia, as was his brother, Mohammed.

    In 1998, Zawahiri created some computer documents describing his biological and chemical program, which he code-named "Curdled Milk." His name "Zabadi" translates to "curdled milk" or yogurt. Yogurt is a custard like food with a tart flavor, prepared from milk curdled by bacteria. It's made using a spraydryer. Like the FBI, Zawahiri has a penchant for suggestive code names, which sort of defeats the purpose. (Indeed, the US Army reportedly used Zabadi and "bad cow" as code names for Iraqi soldiers upon invading Iraq.) The project apparently included work on a pesticide/nerve agent that used a chemical to increase absorption (and was tested on rabbits and dogs). In addition to having acquired anthrax, Al Qaeda allegedly obtained the Ebola virus and salmonella bacterium through the mail from countries of the former Soviet Union and botulinum toxin from the Czech Republic.

    In 1998, Ayman Zawahiri went to Baghdad.

    In February 1999, the month before the dramatic admissions in the Cairo court, a vitriolic message, signed by "Army of Suicidals Group 66, Bin Laden Militant Wing," threatened anthrax attacks against Westerners if they stayed in Yemen beyond a 11-day ultimatum ending February 27. Egyptians, Algerians and Tunisians, all veterans of the Afghan war, were part of a group calling itself the Islamic Army of Aden and Abyan. Investigators considered a possible connection to the attempted extradition to Yemen of the London-based Egyptian islamic preacher Abu Hamza al-Masri. (Abu Hamzi al-Masri would later be arrested in May 2004.)

    In an April 1999 memorandum, Zawahiri writes that "the destructive power of these weapons is no less than that of nuclear weapons. ... [D]espite their extreme danger, we only became aware of them when the enemy drew our attention to them by repeatedly expressing concern that they can be produced simply." According to a May 7, 1999 file, $2,000 to $4,000 had been marked for "startup" costs of the program. A letter dated May 23, 1999 written by one of Zawahiri's aliases mentions some "very useful ideas" that had been discussed during a visit to Abu Khabab. "It just needs some experiments to develop its practical use." Especially promising was a home-brew nerve gas made from insecticides and a chemical additive that would help speed up penetration into the skin.

      In January 2001, the Immigration Minister in Canada received an anthrax threat apparently in connection to the announced bail hearing for a detained Egyptian Islamic Jihad leader who had managed Bin Laden's farm in Sudan.

      In February 2001, the CIA then circulated a still classified briefing memorandum titled "Bin Laden's Interest in Biological and Radiological Weapons."

    After the Fall 2001 anthrax mailings, Al-Jazeera's correspondent Tayseer Alouni interviewed Osama Bin Laden in October 2001 (as translated by CNN)

"Q: Do you have anything to do with anthrax that is spreading around the world?

BIN LADEN: These diseases are a punishment from God and a response to oppressed mothers' prayers in Lebanon, Iraq and Palestine. There is no wall between the prayer of the oppressed and God. This is God's response to these prayers."

     Similarly, according to a German police report, Mohamed Fuzazi, a Morrocan native who reportedly inspired some behind the Madrid bomb attacks, gave sermons praising the spread of anthrax spores in the Fall of 2001 in the US as a "godly instrument."

     Vice-President Cheney explained in mid-October 2001:

"What we do know - we know a number of things. We know that Osama bin Laden and the al-Qaeda Organization clearly have already launched an attack that killed thousands of Americans. We know that for years he's been the source of terrorist attacks against the United States overseas, our embassies in East Africa in '98 -- the USS Cole last year, probably, in Yemen. We know that he has over the years tried to acquire weapons of mass destruction, both biological and chemical weapons. We know that he's trained people in his camps in Afghanistan, for example; we have copies of the manuals that they've actually used to train people with respect to how to deploy and use these kinds of substances. So, you start to piece it altogether. Again, we have not completed the investigation and maybe it's coincidence, but I must say I'm a skeptic."

"I think the only responsible thing for us to do is proceed on the basis that they could be linked. And obviously that means you've got to spend time as well, as we've known now for some time, focusing on other types of attacks besides the one that we experienced on September 11." 

     For his part, Attorney General Ashcroft echoed the Vice President's sentiment on the Lehrer News Hour:

" We haven't been able to rule out relationships, but we cannot conclusively demonstrate those relationships.

It's pretty clear, as the vice president said, that this is a suspicious setting, that these and the onset of these attacks with the sort of vile terrorism of anthrax comes in the wake of and in the circumstance and environment of the attacks on the World Trade Centers in New York, on the Pentagon in the United States, here in the Washington, D.C., area, in Virginia, and in the hijacking in Pennsylvania, but I think it would be inappropriate for us to indicate that we had a kind of conclusive determination either to say that we had made the linkage complete or that we had ruled it out."
 
   The Kabul office of Pakistani scientist Sultan Bashiru-din Mehmood contained documents indicating an interest in anthrax -- to include calculations relating to the aerial dispersal of anthrax by a balloon. His files included a New York Times article on Plum Island, a Biolevel 4 research facility off Long Island alleged to have lax security. US-hating (Taliban) Mullahs oversaw the anthrax vaccine laboratory much to the consternation of the scientist in charge of the lab. The mullahs had ordered that the lab be moved to Kabul so that they could oversee it. According to one British press report, much of the laboratory staff had disappeared some months before 9/11 and their whereabouts are unknown. One epidemiologist following the matter many months ago said that if you want to identify where anthrax R&D involvng aerial dispersal is being done, look for a lot of dead monkeys. An anthrax lab is not an easy thing to hide.

    An AP reporter "saw anthrax and other chemical concoctions at an Al Qaeda laboratory outside Kabul." In late November 2001, an AP photo showed something at the lab described as "anthrax spore concentrate" (but the result of the testing done on the contents has not been reported). That "the one place where the only vial that had English on it said 'anthrax' kind of gives you pause," said Gen. Peter Pace, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The scientists interviewed by the Associated Press did not say whether any of their research was transferred to al-Qaeda or used in biological weapons experiments, but they did acknowledge that the Taliban had access to anthrax at the lab. John Lindh told interrogators that, according to battlefield rumors, a biological attack was expected to be a "second wave."

    According to one uncorroborated Newsweek report, U.S. operatives in Afghanistan discovered evidence indicating that one or more former Russian scientists were helping al-Qaeda weaponize anthrax. CIA Director Tenet had pointed to the general possibility earlier in the Fall at a private meeting. US News had a similar, equally tantalizing, but unverifiable anonymous account of a reporter's encounter with a Filipino carrying papers from Dr. Zawahiri (allowing free lodging) and bragging about his ability to manipulate anthrax. Was this person perceived as Filipino actually Malaysian Yazid Sufaat, who had been in Afghanistan at the time and was involved in Al Qaeda's anthrax production program? Or was it a Filipino trained in anthrax such as Muklis Yunos, who later was captured.    Or was this someone else entirely.

       In late December 2002, an unclassified CIA report submitted to Congress reported that discoveries in Afghanistan show that al-Qaeda's research into biological weapons was more advanced than previously estimated by the United States. According to the CIA's assessment, while Al Qaeda still prefers conventional bombs and other traditional methods of attack, it has become increasingly interested in using biological weapons.

        "Although gaps in our understanding remain, we see al-Qa`ida's program to produce anthrax as one of the most immediate terrorist CBRN threats we are likely to face." Director of Central Intelligence George J. Tenet said in his testimony of before the Senate Armed Services Committee on March 9, 2004.

         In May 2004, Patrick Hughes, Lieutenant General (Retired), Assistant Secretary for Information Analysis, Homeland Security Department, testified before the 9/11 Commission that interrogations and other evidence revealed that Al Qaeda wanted to strike the US with a nonconventional weapon, most notably anthrax. The same week, the WTC head testified that while they had not received any briefing on the use of planes, they had taken steps to prepare for an attack using anthrax based on intelligence that had been received. The head of security at the WTC, O'Neill, had been one of FBI's foremost Al Qaeda experts.

      The night before he died in the attack on the towers, O'Neill was at his usual table at Elaine's. O'Neill told his friend that the country was due for something big. He said that he expected that there would be another attack on the World Trade Center -- because Al Qaeda seeks to finish what they start. O'Neill knew of "Operation Bojinka" and that one of Khalid Mohammed's alternative scenarios was use of a biochemical weapon in connection with the detention of the blind sheikh and other WTC plotters. He had seen the reports of surveillance of the January 2000 meeting in Malaysia attended by Al Qaeda anthrax technician Yazid Sufaat. But he wasn't in a position to do anything about it.

      Holding his trademark cigar, he said "life doesn't get much better than this." He died the next day, after communicating with loved ones by phone after the first plane crashed.