Federal investigators are examining a report that one of the hijackers involved in the Sept. 11 attacks was treated for a skin lesion that could have been caused by anthrax three months before last fall’s deadly mailings, U.S. officials said Saturday (see GSN, March 13).

Experts at the Johns Hopkins Center for Biodefense Strategies prepared the report after examining the documents of a Florida doctor who treated Ahmed Ibrahim al-Haznawi, who was a hijacker on United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed in Pennsylvania, said U.S. officials.  The experts concluded that anthrax was the most likely diagnosis for a lesion found on al-Haznawi’s leg, said Tim Parsons, spokesman for Johns Hopkins University’s school of public health.

Physician Christos Tsonas treated al-Haznawi for the lesion in June, the Associated Press reported Saturday.  Al-Haznawi said he developed the lesion after bumping into a suitcase, but after the Sept. 11 attacks and the anthrax mailings, Tsonas concluded that the lesion was consistent with anthrax, according to the AP.

FBI officials, however, said they did not think there is a connection between the Sept. 11 hijackers and last fall’s anthrax attacks.

“This was fully investigated and widely vetted among multiple agencies several months ago,” said Assistant FBI Director Jon Collingwood in a written statement.  “Exhaustive testing did not support that anthrax was present anywhere the hijackers had been.  While we always welcome new information, nothing new has, in fact, developed” (Associated Press/New York Times, March 24).

The report, along with prior evidence that the hijackers involved in the Sept. 11 attacks were also interested in obtaining access to cropdusting planes, could mean that the Sept. 11 and anthrax attacks were connected, said an FBI official.  Scientists and FBI agents, however, have found no connections in the course of their investigation, the official said.

“We did look into this sometime ago.  This was fully investigated,” the FBI official said.  “It’s a theory, but there’s no evidence.  It’s just not there.  We just have no evidence to feed the speculation that any of those guys came into contact with anthrax.”

“Amerithrax” Investigators Trudge Ahead

Investigators are concerned that the “Amerithrax” investigation into last fall’s anthrax attacks might become a “Unabomber-type investigation” — one that takes years, and possibly a lucky break, before it is solved, said a senior U.S. Justice Department official (Shogren/Meyer, Chicago Tribune, March 24).

FBI investigators had been prepared for a bioterrorism attack conducted in a subway or from an airplane but were surprised by the use of letters, the Wall Street Journal reported.

“None of the training exercises I participated in anticipated that type of delivery,” said a top law-enforcement official involved in the case.  “We had virtually no crime scene in the traditional sense.  We only have the envelopes and the letters and the anthrax.”

So far, one of the most difficult things in the “Amerithrax” investigation has been how to analyze the powder found in the anthrax mailing for clues that might lead back to a suspect, according to the Journal (see GSN, Feb. 26).

Investigators are nonetheless making progress, said two senior law enforcement officials.  One step has been to narrow down the number of U.S. laboratories that have stocks of the Ames strain of anthrax, the same strain that was used in the attacks.

Analysts have conducted a comprehensive review of the possible facilities that could have supplies of the Ames strain, the officials said (see GSN, Feb. 27).  Out of about 22,000 potential U.S. facilities, “We’ve come up with what we think is a pretty tight list,” said one of the officials, adding that the number is less than 100.

Investigators have also had to develop ways to test and analyze the most pristine anthrax samples — those taken from the tainted letter mailed to Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.).  To do so, the FBI brought to together about 20 experts from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the National Science Foundation and other research groups, according to the Journal.

“They came up with a flowchart of all the different tests that should be attempted in order to find out how was it made, where was it made, how old is the sample — all these questions,” one of the officials said.

Once tests were developed, FBI researchers created samples of harmless bacteria similar to anthrax to conduct dry runs.  Additionally, to conduct the sophisticated tests needed, the FBI took time to get needed contracts and secrecy agreements to use outside laboratories, the Journal reported.

One test conducted by an outside laboratory determined the ratio of atomic isotopes in a specific element in the powder.  The ratio varies based on where the element comes from, investigators said.  For example, the isotopic properties of oxygen and hydrogen in rainwater vary depending on the water’s geographic location, they said (Schoofs/Fields, Wall Street Journal, March 25).

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