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Work of Al-Qaeda “Chemist” Still Interests European Authorities
A 29-year-old man with al-Qaeda training prepared jars full of ricin in 2001, and the containers’ current locations and numbers remain unknown, worrying European governments already facing terrorist attacks and threats, the Washington Post reported today (see GSN, Jan. 13). Menad Benchellali of France was known to Arab friends as “the chemist” for the poison-making skills he learned at al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan, the Post reported. He is now serving time in a French prison. Last year, containers such as those Benchellali used to store ricin he manufactured in his parents’ spare bedroom in 2001 — small glass flasks and old jars of Nivea skin cream — turned up in the United Kingdom in the possession of North Africans who were allegedly planning an attack, according to investigators. At least one other jar is known to be missing, and French investigators suspect that others exist. A string of incidents in Europe over the course of the past few months could indicate a particular interest by terrorists in ricin, according to European investigators. Equipment to make ricin or traces of the deadly toxin have been found over the last 2 1/2 years during raids on suspected al-Qaeda groups in the United Kingdom, France, Spain, Russia, Georgia and Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq. Investigators also discovered instructions on making and using ricin. Al-Qaeda's plans to acquire biological and chemical weapons have been documented by researchers. “Biological and chemical weapons are more important than ever to al-Qaeda, but the new emphasis is on the simple and the practical,” said Roland Jacquard, a French terrorism expert and author of a forthcoming book, The Third Generation of al-Qaeda. “This is the kind of terrorism that interested Benchellali’s group. If they had been allowed to continue, they probably would have succeeded,” added Jacquard. However, al-Qaeda’s ability to produce such weapons is believed to have been damaged by the loss of its base in Afghanistan in 2001, when U.S. forces destroyed two production centers that were preparing to manufacture cyanide, botulinum and salmonella toxins, and possibly anthrax, according to the Post (Joby Warrick, Washington Post, May 5).
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