Paper: U.S. Finds Potential Afghan Chemical Sites

12/05/2001| IslamWeb

WASHINGTON (Islamweb & News Agencies) - Two Afghan sites suspected of involvement in efforts by Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda followers to produce deadly chemicals have been identified by the United States, The New York Times reported in Sunday editions.``The American bombing has spared the sites, even though American intelligence officials believe that al Qaeda may already have produced cyanide gas at one of them, a crude chemical weapons research laboratory in Derunta, a small village near the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad,'' the newspaper reported.
When approached by the Times, officials at the CIA, the White House and the Pentagon refused to say why the sites had not been bombed.
The second site was a fertilizer plant in Mazar-i-Sharif, captured by the opposition Northern Alliance on Friday, the Times reported, quoting U.S. intelligence and military officials.
``American officials say the intelligence reports showing the possible production of small quantities of cyanide gas provide the strongest indication they have received of al Qaeda's success in its efforts to develop chemical weapons,'' the newspaper said.
A Defense Department official was quoted as saying that al Qaeda had a primitive capacity in the chemical and biological areas and might have experimented with chlorine and phosgene as well as cyanide.
The intelligence officials' assessment is that ``cyanide gas would be very difficult to turn into an effective large-scale terrorist weapon, since it is hard to transport and would dissipate rapidly in a large open space,'' the Times said, adding that ``intelligence officials say they do not believe that al Qaeda has yet found a way to make weapons from the poison.''