(2 of 2)
While being interrogated, captured al-Qaeda operatives said other trials have been performed in the Khalid bin Waleed kamikaze training camp in Khost, Afghanistan. The principal training facility, they said, is situated in Darunta, near Jalalabad, and is operated by the Egyptian Midhat Mursi, alias Abu Khabab. Mursi is said to have assembled specialized commando units, drawn largely from militants of the Islamic Movement in Uzbekistan. An Egyptian source close to the bin Laden network says Mursi operatives managed to stash dangerous substances in Asia and perhaps in the U.S. and Europe as well. Chemical terrorism is also a priority for al-Qaeda. During the Bosnia war, bin Laden agents actively recruited engineers and lab technicians who had worked in a Sarajevo factory producing chemical arms.
The intended use of such weapons is made clear in the Encyclopedia of Jihad. The book details how to exploit building air-conditioning systems in biological and chemical attacks. Operatives are urged to "poison drug and medical supplies" and to use syringes to contaminate food supplies. Phone taps on suspected al-Qaeda terrorists frequently turned up the phrase "hitting the FBI" in contexts that didn't seem consistent with the police agency; finally authorities realized that the abbreviation stood for the "food and beverage industry."
The objective in deploying these weapons is to traumatize civilian populations in order to put governments under unprecedented, unsustainable pressure capable of bringing them down. Is that an unrealistic goal? Almost certainly, but its irrationality is perfectly in line with the madness driving bin Laden and his terrorist associates.
Roland Jacquard is the author of In the Name of Bin Laden and head of the Paris-based International Observatory on Terrorism