ABCNEWS.com
The threat of terrorists using biochemical weapons took
on greater significance in this decade, as the World Trade Center and Oklahoma
City bombings convinced authorities terrorists are now prepared to do greater
damage and kill more people than ever before.
And at the same time biochemical
weapons production appears to be spreading around the world, the Japanese
religious cult, Aum Shirinkyo, demonstrated terrorists can also plan effective
attacks with such weapons.
“The scope of the kinds of threats
we are dealing with today are more complex and dynamic than the kinds of
threats we faced in the past,” said an FBI source. The spectrum includes
domestic and international terrorists, transnational terrorists with their
own personal political agendas and loners who want to have a significant
impact on society.
What follows are some of many
incidents that have caused law enforcement authorities to believe would-be
terrorists are trying to obtain weapons of mass destruction:
| Dec.
12, 1997 |
A federal judge
comes up with a creative sentence for a man caught with highly toxic chemicals,
the makings for explosives and instructions for making Molotov cocktails,
fertilizer bombs and other weapons. The probation sentence for James Dalton
Bell, an unemployed chemist in Vancouver, Wash., includes: no computers
or Internet access, a ban on having contact with militia groups, and keeping
a distance of 200 yards or more from any residence of a government official.
Bell admitted to setting off a stink bomb
at a local Internal Revenue Service office and authoring “Assassination
Politics,” an Internet essay purportedly offering to hire killers to murder
officials. |
| April
24, 1997 |
| In
Washington, D.C., a petri dish oozing with a red substance labeled anthrax
arrived in the mail at B’nai B’rith, a national Jewish organization. Police
cordoned off a city block and quarantined workers for a day in the building.
The incident was a hoax. |
| 1995-1997 |
| After
ordering three vials of bubonic plague via Federal Express, the FBI showed
up at the Ohio home of microbiologist and white supremacist Larry Wayne
Harris. Although the disease once wiped out a third of Europe during the
14th century, the specimens were easy to purchase in this country until
federal laws were tightened in 1996. Iraq’s Saddam Hussein is believed
to have purchased ingredients for his biochemical weapons from the same
Maryland supply house as Harris did. He pled guilty in spring 1997 to obtaining
the plague under fraudulent circumstances. |
| 1995 |
| A
note sent to Disneyland in Anaheim, Calif., threatened an attack on the
park. It was accompanied with a videotape showing two hands mixing chemicals. |
| 1995 |
| A
nerve-gas attack in Tokyo killed a dozen people on a subway and left 1,000
injured. The religious cult Aum Shinrikyo, took responsibility, and was
subsequently found to be stockpiling anthrax and botulin toxin. The group
had plans for attacking New York and Washington, D.C. |
| Nov.
11, 1995 |
| The
FBI prevented an act of terrorism by arresting four U.S. persons in Oklahoma
for illegally conspiring to manufacture and possess a destructive device.
The subjects were considering attacking civil rights offices, abortion
clinics, and federal agencies. Ray Willie Lampley, who has described himself
as a “prophet of the most high,” is a militia leader with strong anti-government
views. He advocates stockpiling homemade bombs and other weapons to fight
a “foreign invasion.” Lampley has also written to public figures, prophesying
their deaths as divine retribution for “corrupt actions.” |
| Oct.
9, 1995 |
| A
12-car Amtrak train derailed near Hyder, Arizona. The derailment killed
one and seriously injured 12 others. Approximately 100 others suffered
minor injuries. This suspected act of terrorism is still under investigation.
Four typed letters were found mentioning the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco,
and Firearms, the FBI, “Ruby Ridge,” and “Waco.” They were signed “Sons
of the Gestapo.” |
| April
19, 1995 |
| A
truck bomb destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma
City, Oklahoma, killing 168 and injuring hundreds. |
| March
9, 1995 |
| Top
Ten Fugitive Melvin Edward Mays, a member of the Chicago El Rukns street
gang, was arrested by members of the FBI’s Chicago Joint Terrorism Task
Force. He was charged with more than 40 federal counts related to a conspiracy
to conduct terrorist activities on behalf of the government of Libya. |
| Feb.
28, 1995 |
| A
Minneapolis jury convicted four members of a domestic extremist group called
the Patriot’s Council in Minnesota for violating the Biological Weapons
Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989. The subjects manufactured the biological agent
ricin with the intent to kill law enforcement officers. The amount of ricin
produced could have killed more than 100 people if effectively delivered |
| 1993-1995 |
| Canadian
authorities arrested an Arkansas resident, Thomas Lavy, in 1993 while he
attempted to transport several weapons, racist literature, 20,000 rounds
of ammunition, $80,000 and a quarter-pound of the deadly chemical agent
ricin, across the Alaskan border. Six thousand times more lethal than cyanide,
ricin has no antidote. Canadian police said Lavy told them he was planning
to use the ricin to poison coyotes on his Arkansas farm. Lavy hanged himself
in an Arkansas jail in 1995, after FBI agents arrested him on a related
charge. In the United States, unlicensed possession of ricin is forbidden
by a federal anti-terrorism statute. |
| 1993 |
| A
bombing in the parking garage of the World Trade Center kills six and injures
1,000. The bomb left a crater 200 by 100 feet wide and five stories deep.
The World Trade Center is the second largest building in the world and
houses 100,000 workers and visitors each day. If the 110-story building
had fallen, as the terrorists had planned, as many 250,000 could have been
killed. |
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