Report: FBI Suspects U.S. Extremists of Anthrax Attacks
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The FBI (news - web sites) and CIA (news - web sites) believe extremists in the United States, not followers of Saudi-born Osama bin Laden (news - web sites), are probably behind this month's anthrax attacks, the Washington Post reported on Saturday.
Senior officials also are increasingly concerned the germ warfare agent attacks have diverted public attention from the larger threat posed by bin Laden and his al Qaeda network, the paper said. They believe the main suspect in the hijacked plane strikes on America on Sept. 11 is planning a second wave of attacks against U.S. interests at home or abroad that could come at any time, the Post added.
The FBI and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service are considering a wide range of domestic possibilities, including associates of right-wing hate groups and U.S. residents sympathetic to causes of Islamic extremists, in the letter-borne germ attacks.
``Everything seems to lean toward a domestic source,'' a senior government official told the newspaper. ``Nothing seems to fit with an overseas terrorist type operation.''
In a spate of cases involving letters laced with the anthrax spores, three people have died, at least 11 others have been infected and thousands more have been tested or given medicine for the rare disease. The attacks have spooked Americans, already on edge after the plane attacks that killed some 5,000 people shattered the nation's sense of security.
The Post reported investigators have no clear suspects and are not even certain whether there are other undetected letters that contain the potentially deadly microbe.
So far, federal authorities have identified only one letter in the Washington area that contained anthrax -- sent to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, a South Dakota Democrat.
But the detection of anthrax at an increasing number of government mail facilities and congressional offices has raised the possibility that one or more additional anthrax letters may have come through the Washington area.
The Bush administration has said it does not rule out a link between the anthrax and bin Laden, although it has found no hard evidence.
On Friday, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer (news - web sites) said investigators had determined that the pure, concentrated and highly dangerous anthrax delivered in a letter to Daschle ''could be produced by a PhD microbiologist and a sophisticated laboratory.''
``That does not rule out that it could be state-sponsored,'' Fleischer said at a briefing. ``That does not rule out that it could come from a foreign location. But it certainly does expand it beyond state sponsorship or foreign locations.''
The Post said the anti-Israel message in anthrax letters sent to Daschle and NBC News, and in bin Laden's statements are echoed by U.S. extremists groups, such as Aryan Action, which praises the Sept. 11 plane attacks.
FBI Director Robert Mueller warned earlier this week additional terror attacks are a ``distinct possibility.''
But government officials do not believe the anthrax scare is a second wave of attacks by bin Laden, the paper said.
``There is not intelligence on it and it does not fit any (al Qaeda) pattern,'' a senior official told the paper.