Global Security Newswire August 11, 2005
Scientists Claim Online Bioterror Materials Flawed
Online libraries of al-Qaeda training materials suggest that the terrorist organization is lacking technical expertise, the Federation of American Scientists said this week .
In the Aug. 8 issue of its Secrecy Newsletter, the organization criticized a Sunday Washington Post article for failing to understand the science contained in the library. For example, the article incorrectly stated that a virus causes pneumonic plague. Plague is caused by a bacterium, according to the federation.
The organization also said that betaluminium poison, cited by the Post as being contained in “The Mujahideen Poisons Handbook,” does not exist. “The first time I saw [the Mujahideen Poisons Handbook], I thought it must be a hoax,” said George Smith, a chemist with GlobalSecurity.org.
“Careful examination of the document shows that it is crammed with errors, seemingly the work of someone with little discernible sense, profoundly ignorant of the nature of simple compounds and incompetent in even minor (laboratory) procedures,” Smith wrote in 2004.
If the handbook represents the best knowledge terrorists have of biological weapons, the public is more safe and secure, according to the federation.
“The ‘Poisons Handbook’ is an example of someone professing to know what he is doing on poisons who profoundly and obviously does not know what he is doing,” Smith said (Secrecy News, Aug. 8).
© Copyright 2005, National Journal Group, Inc.
