1999-2001: Al-Qaeda Seeks Anthrax; Letters Recovered in Afghanistan Detail Plans

Starting in 1999 and continuing over the next two years, al-Qaeda makes persistent but unsuccessful efforts to obtain anthrax, according to US officials. This conclusion is based on documents found by coalition forces in an al-Qaeda camp in Kandahar in late 2001. The letters are written by Abdur Rauf, a Pakistani microbiologist, to Ayman al-Zawahiri and detail his efforts to obtain samples of anthrax as well as equipment to grow the bacteria. Rauf is a specialist in food production with the prestigious Pakistan Council of Scientific and Industrial Research in Lahore. Scientific articles on culturing bacteria, including anthrax, will also be found with the letters, along with rudimentary laboratories. One of the notes is written on the stationery of the Society for Applied Microbiology, a scientific organization to which Rauf belongs. The note is believed to have been written while Rauf was attending a scientific conference at Porton Down, Britain’s leading biodefense research center. The letters show that Rauf was unable to obtain a pathogenic strain of anthrax and that al-Qaeda’s bioweapons program is only at an early stage before being disrupted by the late 2001 invasion of Afghanistan (see (Late 2001)). [New York Times, 5/21/2005; Washington Post, 10/31/2006]