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Al-Qaeda: A journalist with the London Times found instructions for producing ricin, one of the most toxic biological agents on earth, in an abandoned al-Qaeda house in Kabul yesterday. The documents described the necessary doses for killing adults and children, the effects of the poison on a dying victim and the necessary equipment for working with the poison, such as wearing gloves and a face mask. The journalist also discovered dummy bombs, propaganda papers, syringes, pills, other laboratory equipment and instructions for making explosives and detonation devices. The house was looted after the Taliban and members of the al-Qaeda terrorist network fled Kabul earlier this week. The Times reported that two Arab doctors who worked in the house were beaten and killed as they tried to escape Monday night (Loyd/Fletcher, London Times, Nov. 16). The Washington Post said a German man who had converted to Islam and an Arab man of unknown nationality who lived in an al-Qaeda house were either beaten to death by an anti-Taliban mob Tuesday or killed themselves before the mob could reach them. The Post reported that a house abandoned by al-Qaeda members—it was unclear whether the house was the same as the one where ricin plans were found—contained military equipment, including detonators, hand grenades, dynamite and chemical compounds, as well as instructions for making bombs and fake travel documents. Al-Qaeda members also left behind instructions for producing a “chemical poison” using sodium or potassium cyanide (William Branigin, Washington Post, Nov. 16). Ahmed Ressam, a former al-Qaeda member arrested at the U.S. border in 1999, has told authorities his training at a camp in Afghanistan included instruction on placing cyanide gas near the air intake vents of buildings. An al-Qaeda instructor once put a dog in a box and poured cyanide and sulfuric acid in the box, and it took the dog about four minutes to die, Ressam told a court in July, saying, “We wanted to know what is the effect of the gas” (Dobbs/Behr, Washington Post, Nov. 16). Plans for Nuclear and Radiological Weapons The discovery of ricin instructions followed the finding of instructions for producing a nuclear weapon (see GSN, Nov. 15). The nuclear documents provided further evidence that suspected terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden was seeking nuclear weapons (see GSN, Nov. 7), U.S. Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge said yesterday, but he added the documents had been “taken off the Internet some years ago” and were widely available (Associated Press/New York Times, Nov. 16). The Pentagon said it was investigating the report of al-Qaeda’s nuclear documents in Kabul. General Tommy Franks, commander of the U.S. campaign in Afghanistan, said U.S. forces had a list of potential al-Qaeda weapons sites and were investigating each site as they gained control of more territory (Loyd/Fletcher, London Times, Nov. 16). The likelihood of terrorists obtaining or producing radiological bombs—an explosive surrounded by radioactive material—poses a greater threat to U.S. security than nuclear bombs (see GSN, Nov. 2), said a National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements report sent to Congress today. Contamination from such an attack in a city would be “catastrophic but manageable,” the report said. Radiation levels from such a bomb might not pose a serious threat to rescue workers, Council President Charles Meinhold said, but added that government agencies and medical personnel needed more training and equipment. Al-Qaeda’s claims to possess nuclear weapons are not credible, but the likelihood the organization has a radiological bomb is much higher, said one U.S. official. “When you have got a group that is clearly going after weapons of mass destruction, you have to assume that they will succeed at some point,” the official said. Graham Allison of Harvard University, however, said it was “probable” that al-Qaeda had acquired enough fissile material to create a crude nuclear device. “I find it well within the realm of the probable that they have fissile material from Russia, which they could fashion into a device that they could put into a minivan,” he said (Dobbs/Behr, Washington Post, Nov. 16).
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