U.S. Water News Online
CAIRO, Egypt -- An Arabic-language magazine quotes a senior member of al-Qaida as raising the possibility that the group might poison U.S. water supplies.
The Saudi-owned al-Majalla weekly also reports in its latest edition that al-Qaida militants are in the ranks of Saddam Hussein loyalists who are attacking U.S.-led forces in Iraq.
The reports are based on e-mail correspondence that Al-Majalla conducted with Abu Mohammed al-Ablaj, whom the magazine identified as a senior member of al-Qaida.
``It is something that would have to be viewed seriously,'' said a U.S. counterterrorism official in Washington, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
The London-based Al-Majalla began receiving al-Ablaj's e-mails last month, and a U.S. counterterrorism official said previously that al-Ablaj was believed to be an al-Qaida operative.
In the earlier exchange with the magazine, al-Ablaj said al-Qaida was going to carry out major attacks in Saudi Arabia. Al-Majalla published the warning on May 11 - a day before suicide bombers detonated explosives at three housing complexes in Riyadh, killing 25 people.
In the latest exchange of e-mails, al-Ablaj was quoted by the magazine as saying that al-Qaida did not rule out ``the use of Sarin gas and the poisoning of drinking water in American and Western cities.'' He was quoted as saying al-Qaida ``will present the Americans with their capabilities.''
Sarin gas, a nerve agent, was used in a 1995 attack that killed 12 people on Tokyo's subways. That attack was carried out by a group then known as Aum Shinrikyo and now called Aleph which has no known ties to al-Qaida. The gas can penetrate the lungs or the skin and invade the nervous system. It is fatal and also can cause symptoms such as blurred vision, difficult breathing, excessive sweating, weakened muscles, paralysis and seizures.
Even if terrorists managed to introduce Sarin into water supplies, dilution, purification systems and natural breakdown of the agent in the environment would make it very difficult, if not impossible, to deliver a lethal dose through a metropolitan water supply system. But the discovery of even trace contamination in a water system could have major psychological and social impacts, a 2002 National Academy of Sciences study concluded.
Al-Ablaj also was quoted by the magazine as threatening to launch ``smashing strikes against Israelis abroad.''
Al-Ablaj, who told the magazine he directs training of al-Qaida fighters, said ``elements of al-Qaida are fighting alongside the Iraqis'' against coalition forces. He added they were fighting for ousted President Saddam Hussein because he had declared holy war on the Americans.
The magazine's editors have written that al-Ablaj first e-mailed one of their reporters three months ago. They said they could not confirm al-Ablaj's identity and did not know his whereabouts.
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