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US militia, not Osama behind Anthrax scare: Expert
Wed Oct 17 08:28:39 2001


US militia, not Osama behind Anthrax scare: Expert

Crackdown on "Domestic Terrorism" Coming Soon ...

10/16/01 2:27:18 PM

Times of India / Agency France Press

Sydney, Australia -- US militia, not Osama behind Anthrax scare:
Expert

SYDNEY: The anthrax attacks now spreading terror through the
United States are unlikely to have had anything to do with Osama
Bin Laden, Australia's leading authority on terrorism said on
Tuesday.

Clive Williams, a specialist in terrorism at the Australian
National University (ANU) in Canberra, believes the evidence
points to right-wing US militia. "I think the first instances of
it, the ones involving media, were more likely to have been caused
by extremist militia in the US who have shown an interest in
anthrax in the past and tried to acquire it," he told AFP.

"The subsequent instances were basically copy-cat episodes by
mentally unbalanced people, I believe." Williams, widely
acknowledged as Australia's leading authority on the subject, is
preparing a graduate course in terrorism for the ANU's Strategic
and Defence Studies Centre.

Speaking 24 hours after Australia was plunged into chaos and panic
because of a series of hoaxes involving "suspicious" packages of
white powder, he said Australia, in reality, is in little danger
from bio-terrorist attack.

However, up to 16 buildings were evacuated on Monday because of
hoax packages and authorities reported dozens more were received
on Tuesday. Williams believes Australia is better prepared than
almost any other country to deal with bio-terrorist attack because
of the planning and equipment acquired for last year's Olympics in
Sydney.

"Australians can rest assured that our government agencies are
world class in their ability to react quickly and deal with any
potential terrorist biological threats. Armageddon is not around
the corner."

He believes the US attacks have involved the use of a form of
anthrax readily available to scientists and researchers. "But what
is rare is the weaponised version of it which is much more
dangerous and has a high lethality rate, but that is not available
and is difficult to manufacture," he said.

"In the United States there has only been one instance in which it
was alleged there was an airborne spore, but that could have been
because somebody touched anthrax and then picked their nose. I'm
not convinced that any of the instances in the US involved the
weaponised variety." But he said the only anthrax the US militia
groups could have acquired was the type with the potential to
cause illness and which is readily treatable with antibiotics. A
photo editor died on October 5 from respiratory anthrax at
American Media Inc. in Boca Raton, Florida. Three other people who
have since developed the disease were employees of media
companies, triggering suspicions of a bioterrorist campaign by bin
Laden, who is blamed for the September 11 terrorist attacks in the
US. In an article for The Australian newspaper, Williams said few
terrorist groups in the world had demonstrated an interest in
bioterrorism and fewer still had tried to acquire biological
agents. One that did was Japan's Aum Shinrikyo sect which had
among its members biochemists who tried to develop biological
weapons using anthrax, but gave up after nine attempts, deciding
instead to focus on sarin gas, a chemical agent. The sect's 1995
sarin attack on Tokyo's subway system killed 11 and injured around
5,500. Williams said it has proved extremely difficult to cause
mass casualties with a biological agent although four people had
died in one particular incident. A leakage of anthrax in the
Soviet Union also caused many deaths decades ago, but that was the
weaponised variety, he said. "So far, no terrorist group has been
successful at culturing a virulent agent capable of causing mass
casualties and it is likely to be some time before this capability
exists," he added.

( AFP )

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