http://www.nypost.com/news/worldnews/32458.htm
NY Post
OSAMA BOUGHT A BATCH FOR 10G
By NILES LATHEM
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
October 24, 2001 -- WASHINGTON - Terror master Osama bin Laden bought
samples of anthrax by mail from shady laboratories in Eastern Europe and
Asia for as little as $10,000, a former follower has told authorities in
Egypt.
The astonishing claim of how easily - and cheaply - the world's most wanted
terrorist was able to acquire anthrax and other deadly germ agents was made
in a 143-page confession of former extremist Ahmad Ibrahim al-Najjar at a
recent trial of more than 100 members of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad.
Al-Najjar, serving a life sentence in Egypt, was among several Islamic Jihad
operatives arrested in Albania in 1999 and brought home to Egypt to face
trial for a series of attempts to destabilize the pro-Western government of
President Hosni Mubarak.
According to translated accounts of his testimony obtained by The Post,
al-Najjar told authorities there was nothing cloak-and-dagger about bin
Laden's transactions involving deadly biological agents.
"Factories" in the Czech Republic and elsewhere in Eastern Europe supplied
deadly bacteria, including e-coli and salmonella, by mail without checking
the identities of the purchasers as long as bin Laden's agents paid $7,500
up front, al-Najjar said.
Bin Laden's group was able to get the anthrax germ from another "factory" in
Southeast Asia, which supplied it to the Indonesian-based Islamic Moro
Front, a terror group closely associated with bin Laden.
The price for the anthrax spores, al-Najjar said, was $3,685, "plus shipping
costs."
U.S. officials say they don't yet know whether bin Laden is responsible for
the anthrax scare gripping the nation, although President Bush and other
senior officials say they are suspicious.
Bin Laden is known to have contacts with Iraqi officials and mafia groups in
former Soviet republics - nations that have extensive chemical- and
biological-weapons programs and that are known to have experimented with
anthrax.
<PRE>Post to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] List
info: www.topica.com/lists/biowar
</PRE>
<PRE>==^================================================================
EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: <A HREF=" http://topica.com/u/?bz8Q0W.bAgsdR
">http://topica.com/u/?bz8Q0W.bAgsdR</A>
Or send an email To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
This email was sent to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail!
<A HREF=" http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register
">http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register</A>
==^================================================================</PRE>
