Global Security Newswire

U.S. and Malaysian security officials have said that an al-Qaeda program to develop chemical and biological weapons was in its “conceptual stages” when it was disrupted by the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, the Associated Press reported yesterday (see GSN, Nov. 18, 2003).

The biological and chemical weapons program was based in the Afghan city of Kandahar and was believed to have been operated by Yazid Sufaat, a former Malaysian army captain, and led by Riduan Isamuddin, or Hambali, who is suspected of heading al-Qaeda operations in Southeast Asia, officials said. Both men have been arrested, with Sufaat in Malaysian custody and Isamuddin in U.S. custody, AP reported.

Isamuddin has provided U.S. interrogators with some information on the aborted WMD program, but Sufaat is believed to know more detail, according to AP. So far, U.S. officials have only made informal attempts to question Sufaat, a Malaysian official said. Malaysian Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar said that Malaysian was “willing to consider” any U.S. request to question Sufaat (Associated Press/USA Today, Jan. 27).