Redstate

By Ross Posted in User Blogs — Comments (1) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

   Ayman Zawahiri had a scientist named Rauf attending conferences sponsored by Porton Down, UK's biodefense facility, for the purpose of obtaining the Ames anthrax strain.  The scientist's handwritten notes reportiing on his efforts are available through the Freedom of Information Act.  He is just one of a number of microbiologists who have been captured that have gotten no attention by the media.   On November 1, 2001, not long after the anthrax mailings, an article ran in the Chicago Times called "Pakistan's scientists under scrutiny."   With a dateline Islamabad, Pakistan, the story began:

"The day after Pakistan handed over Yemeni microbiologist Jamil Qasim Saeed Mohammed to U.S. agents, authorities stepped up their search for other scientists and students who may have maintained links to Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda network, Pakistani intelligence sources said this week."

   Jamil Qasim Saeed Mohammed was a Yemeni microbiology candidate student who had been flown out of the country on a private jet operated by the CIA in late October.  He had assisted Malaysian anthrax lab tech Yazid Sufaat in setting up a lab that was intended to manufacture anthrax.    Jamil Qasim Saeed Mohammed was indicted along with Boston cab driver Hijazi and others in connection with the earlier Cole bombing.

    Al Qaeda anthrax lab technician Yazid Sufaat was arrested in December 2001 when he tried to sneak back into Malaysia.   But rather than noticing, in the Spring 2002, the news hounds began tracking US scientist Steve Hatfill.

   Then, in October 2002, Jang publication "The News" (in English),  in reporting on a raid of a compound of doctors in Lahore, Pakistan let drop a remarkable sentence about the microbiologist who actually played a central role in seeking to obtain the Ames anthrax strain for Ayman Zawahiri.  The article noted, as reported by the CIA's Foreign Broadcasting Information Service, that "Well-placed sources pointed out the Manawan arrests were also part of the chain of events which started from the arrest of PCSIR's Pakistan Council of Scientific and Industrial Research microbiologist of Dr. Abdur Rauf and interrogations of Dr. Amer Aziz."  

   In December 2003, a journal called "Science" magazine pictured excerpts from handwritten letters by Dr. Rauf, without naming him, that had been obtained under the Freedom  of Information Act.  One of the handwritten letters was on the letterhead of the Society for Applied Microbiology (sfam).   (Dr. A. Rauf  was merely one of hundreds of members of the society, and was not an employee.)    It turns out that the scientist had traveled from Pakistan once a year to the UK to attend conferences about anthrax and dangerous pathogens.

   The Sunday at the start of the Organisation of the Dangerous Pathogens meeting in September 2000 was gloomy. Planning had proved even more difficult than the International Conference on anthrax also held at the University of Plymouth, in September 1998. The overseas delegates included a sizable contingent from Russia. Many thorny issues regarding who could attend had needed to be addressed.   Among the scientists in attendance was a Dr. A. Rauf.  Les Ballie the head of the biodefense technologies group at Porton Down ran the scientific program.  Many of the delegates took an evening cruise round Plymouth harbour -- the cold kept most from staying out on the deck.  Later attendees visited the National Marine Aquarium -- with a reception in view of a large tankful of sharks. Addresses included presentations on plagues of antiquity, showing how dangerous infectious diseases had a profound that they changed the course of history. Titles include "Magna pestilencia - Black Breath, Black Rats, Black Death", "From Flanders to Glanders," as well as talks on influence, typhoid and cholera. The conference was co-sponsored by DERA, the UK Defence Evaluation and Research Agency.

   Les Ballie of Porton Down gave a presentation titled, "Bacillus anthracis: a bug with attitude! " He argued that anthrax was a likely pathogen to be used by terrorists. As described at the time by Phil Hanna of University of Michigan Medical School on the sfam webpage, Ballie "presented a comprehensive overview of this model pathogen, describing its unique biology and specialised molecular mechanisms for pathogenesis and high virulence. He went on to describe modern approaches to exploit new bioinformatics for the development of potential medical counter measures to this deadly pathogen."

    Despite the cold and the sharks, amidst all the camaraderie and bonhomie no one suspected that despite the best efforts, a predator was on board -- on a coldly calculated mission to obtain a pathogenic anthrax strain.

    As described by Dr. Peter Turnbull's Conference report on "the First European Dangerous Pathogens Conference" (held in Winchester, 27-29 September 1999) , the September 1999 conference had been less successful. The lecture theater only averaged about 75 at peak times by his head count. There had been a problem of defining "dangerous pathogen" and a "disappointing representation from important institutions in the world of hazard levels 3 and 4 organisms.."  Papers included a summary of plague in Madagascar and another on the the outbreak management of haemorrhagic fevers.  Dr Paul Keim of Northern Arizona University presented a paper on multilocus VNTR typing, for example, of Bacillus anthracis and Yersinia pestis. There were than the usual no-show presenters and fill-in speakers. In his report, Dr. Turnbull looked forward to a second, fully international conference in 2000 focused on the ever increasing problems surrounding hazard levels 3 and 4 organisms and aimed at international agreement on the related issues.  Dr. Turnbull would later tell the Washington Post that he had given the Ames strain to four private researchers who he declined to name.  (I assume Dr. Rauf was one of those four researchers, but Dr. Turnbull has not responded to my inquiry about Dr. Rauf to him.)

    In 1999, a different scientist from Porton Down scientist had reported to sfam members on a conference in Taos, New Mexico in August 1999 that included a talk Tim Read, (TIGR, Rockville, USA) and concerned the whole genome sequencing of the Bacillus anthracis Ames strain. The Ames strain may have been a mystery to many after the Fall 2001 maiilings, but not to motivated sfam members or Ayman Zawahiri.

    The year before, the 3rd International Conference on Anthrax was held at the University of Plymouth on September 7 - 10 1998 and was organized along six themes: The natural ecology and global incidence of anthrax, the detection, identification and classification of B anthracis, structure and function of both spore and vegetative components, the molecular biology of B anthracis, Pathogenesis - the toxins, and the possibility of vaccines. The Conference again was jointly organised by the Society for Applied Microbiology and DERA, CBD Porton Down. At the 1998 conference, Martin Hugh-Jones of LSU, Les Ballie and Peter Turnbull, then of Porton Down, A.M. Friedlander of Ft. Detrick, each coauthored multiple papers available for purchase online. Other papers were submitted by equally familiar names, such as Koehler, Hanna, and Mock.

    The Conference proceedings are available on Video.  Did Rauf ever obtain virulent Ames?   In any event, there would certainly be a major question of who weaponized it and who mailed it.   Although Khalid Mohammed was allegedly arrested in the home of an elderly bacteriologist, Abdul Qadoos Khan, and a laptop with anthrax spraydrying production documents on it, I've never heard it suggested that Dr.  Khan had  the relevant skills to weaponize the product used in the second batch of mailings in the US.

   But imagine, if you will, Ayman in his armchair watching some Porton Down scientist lecture on anthrax. Compare the capability Ayman was showing on gathering intelligence on the Ames strain and the anthrax work at Porton Down and elsewhere compared to the US understanding of  Ayman's program to weaponize anthrax pre-9/11.   Compare Ayman's inquisitiveness with the US media's total failure to ask questions about the various microbiologists working for Al Qaeda who have been detained.  

   It's as if they took the anthrax mailed to media outlets to heart.

http://www.anthraxandalqaeda.com

Sources:

Uli Schmetzer, "Pakistan's scientists under scrutiny," Chicago Tribune, November 1, 2001

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/showcase/chi-0111010253nov01,0,1848591.s

tory?coll=chi-newsspecials-hed

"When is a dangerous pathogen not a dangerous pathogen?" by Dr. Peter Turnbull [Report on September 1999 sfam conference]

http://web.archive.org/web/20010406071443/http://www.sfam.org.uk/

Report on Dangerous Pathogens Conference at University of Plymouth 4-7 September 2000.

http://web.archive.org/web/20010406071443/http://www.sfam.org.uk/

"3rd International Conference on Anthrax, University of Plymouth, 7<caron>10 September 1998," Journal of Applied Microbiology, August 1999, vol. 87, no. 2, pp. 187-321.

http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bsc/jam/1999/00000087/00000002

"Doctor Arrested for Alleged Links With Al-Qa'ida," The News (Internet version.www) in English  22 October 2002 (CIA's FBIS Transcribed Text)