Anthrax Probe Shifts To Homegrown Hate Groups

[Seth Ackerman]

> Published on Thursday, October 25, 2001 in the New York Post 
> Anthrax Probe Shifts To Homegrown Hate Groups 
> by Murray Weiss 
> 
> Ultra-right-wing organizations - including a particular West Coast group -
> have become a key focus of the massive federal investigation into the
> murderous Anthrax attacks, The Post has learned. 
> 
> Investigators have been zeroing in on members of several anti-government
> hate groups that they believe have obtained or attempted to get the deadly
> bacteria from several U.S.-based laboratories before it surfaced in
> Florida, Washington and New York this month. 
> 
> Several sources told The Post that, while they have not entirely
> discounted state-sponsored terrorism, Osama bin Laden sympathizers or
> sleeper cells, a number of developments in the far-flung probe have them
> eyeing domestic terrorists: 
> 
> * The FBI is analyzing about a dozen other letters - including several
> that predate the World Trade Center attacks and the anthrax scare - that
> were sent to various media outlets. These letters did not contain anthrax,
> but had similar messages and handwriting as the germ-tainted notes. 
> 
> * Probers also see similarities between the anthrax letters and some of
> the so-called hoax letters that contained talcum powder and were initially
> brushed aside as not being linked to the bioterror scare. 
> 
> Some investigators believe the same person may have written both sets of
> letter. 
> 
> "Our feeling is the anthrax does not point to an international terrorist
> group," a well-placed source said. "The only way it could be is if they
> are purposely writing letters that point away from them as a ruse and
> using anthrax that we believe was manufactured here." 
> 
> "The anthrax letter writer did not fall off a turnip truck after the World
> Trade Center destruction," another source said. "He has been thinking
> these thoughts long before this, and may have had anthrax for a while." 
> 
> "There are a number of strong leads and some people we've known of for
> some time who are being looked at," another highly placed source said. 
> 
> From the start, FBI profilers cautioned about channeling investigative
> efforts toward Mideast terror groups because the anthrax-tainted letters
> to the New York Post, NBC-TV and Sen. Thomas Daschle contained the date
> "09-11-01," but were in envelopes postmarked Sept. 18. 
> 
> Sources said international terrorists would unlikely feel the need to
> spell out an obvious link to their earlier horrific handiwork. 
> 
> "That's real overkill," agreed Clint Van Zandt, a former top FBI profiler.
> "It is someone other than a bin Laden trying too hard to link up to Sept.
> 11. It is a gratuitous reference." 
> 
> The tone of the letter to Daschle, the Senate majority leader, is far more
> threatening - "You Die Now" - than the missives to the media, which
> advised the recipients to "Take Penacilin [sic]." 
> 
> "Daschle represents the government, and the government is what the
> right-wing groups hate," a source said. "By contrast, the media is
> something they use to get publicity and spread fear." 
> 
> The sources declined to name the hate groups being eyed in the
> investigation or the laboratories where the anthrax may have been obtained
> or milled. 
> 
> Copyright 2001 NYP Holdings, Inc 
> 
>