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Al-Qaeda: WMD Capability Investigated in Afghanistan U.S. investigators have so far found evidence of “an appetite for weapons of mass destruction” while searching abandoned al-Qaeda sites, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said yesterday. They have found no “hard evidence,” however, that al-Qaeda members actually possessed such weapons, he added. At abandoned bunkers and other sites, U.S. officials have discovered diagrams, materials, reports, notes from meetings and other such items that show al-Qaeda was interested in weapons of mass destruction, Rumsfeld said (see GSN, Jan. 4). The United States is investigating about 50 sites, and about 40 of those sites have already been checked, Rumsfeld said, adding that authorities were waiting to receive test results on some items (see GSN, Dec. 14, 2001). “There’s still a few yet to explore, a handful, and there’s still some information to come back,” the secretary said. Depleted Uranium A high radioactivity count at one site was the single piece of evidence indicating the presence of material for weapons of mass destruction. Rumsfeld said it appeared that depleted uranium from spent U.S. shells was the source of the radioactivity. Canisters May Contain Chemical Weapons Authorities also discovered canisters that had “stuff on them that make reasonable people think there’s something not good in there, and we’re going to check them out,” Rumsfeld said. He speculated that the material inside might be chemical — as opposed to biological or radiological — if he had to guess. “But I just don’t know,” Rumsfeld said. Authorities had not yet looked inside the canisters, Rumsfeld said (Federal News Service transcript, Jan. 16). Meanwhile, however, U.S. Army Col. Rick Thomas said there was “nothing inside” the canisters. Al-Qaeda had made transactions before for innocuous items that appeared to be weapons of mass destruction, other officials said. The canisters had Cyrillic writing on them that could indicate they came from Russia, defense officials said. Two containers discovered near Kabul had a skull-and-crossbones symbol on them and warnings in Russian that indicated nuclear material, Thomas said (Bryan Bender, Boston Globe, Jan. 17). Assessing the Threat Officials said it appears so far that al-Qaeda did not develop weapons of mass destruction, the Associated Press reported. Al-Qaeda wanted such weapons but was only in the first stage of attempting to acquire them, the officials said. The materials gathered in Afghanistan to date are very basic and similar to items found in a regular U.S. high school chemistry class, one official said (Matt Kelley, Associated Press/Yahoo.com, Jan. 17). New Lead? Meanwhile, a man voluntarily went to the U.S. Marine base at the Kandahar Airport and said he previously contributed financially to the Taliban. U.S. officials said he might be able to provide useful intelligence information, but the Defense Department said authorities did not know the extent of his knowledge of the relationship between al-Qaeda and the Taliban. The man was not a member of the Taliban regime. The man remained on the U.S. base yesterday but was not under detention, said Lt. James Jarvis, a Marine spokesman. He is not on the U.S. wanted list, according to an unidentified Pentagon official, but investigators were “jumping with joy,” Jarvis said (Bender, Boston Globe, Jan. 17).
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