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Al-Qaeda: U.S. Officials to Examine Recovered Videotapes U.S. officials will examine a recently recovered collection of al-Qaeda videotapes, which includes footage of crude chemical weapons experiments, for intelligence information, White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer said yesterday (see GSN, Aug. 19). “Appropriate officials will take a look” at the videotapes, Fleischer said. U.S. news organization CNN, which recovered the videotapes in Afghanistan, confirmed through a spokeswoman that it is sharing them with “appropriate authorities.” A U.S. defense official said the footage of chemical weapons experiments corroborates what U.S. troops found in searches of more than 60 sites in Afghanistan believed to be associated with al-Qaeda attempts to acquire weapons of mass destruction (see GSN, March 26). Those searches uncovered instructions on how to produce biological and chemical agents, the official said. U.S. forces also found laboratory equipment and supplies of atropine — a nerve agent antidote — but no weapons, the official said (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo.com, Aug. 20). The recovered al-Qaeda videotapes also appear to support the court testimony of Ahmed Ressam, who said he had witnessed al-Qaeda experiments involving poisoning dogs with cyanide (see GSN, Nov. 16, 2001). Ressam has been convicted of attempting to bomb the Los Angeles airport (Barrie McKenna, Globe and Mail, Aug. 20). For further information, see: Federation of American Scientists Information on Chemical Weapons
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