Sunday Times, UK

October 14 2001 TERRORISM

CYANIDE THREAT: Tapes reveal poison plan

John Follain and Nicholas Rufford

SECRETLY recorded tapes have revealed plans by followers of Osama Bin Laden for a chemical weapon attack in Europe using a poisonous invisible gas that security sources say was cyanide.

A gang of terrorists active in Britain, Germany and Italy plotted to use tins of tomatoes to transport "a liquid that suffocates people". The plan was foiled after a Libyan at the centre of the plot was arrested in Munich on Wednesday.

The evidence is the first that Bin Laden's Al-Qaeda organisation was preparing to use weapons of mass destruction. The tapes were made by Italian anti-terrorist police, who bugged an apartment outside Milan that the gang thought was a safe house. The suspects discussed getting 10 litres of the poison, enough to kill thousands if released indoors.

One theory is that the group planned to spread the poison in an American government building in London or Rome. A witness who trained in one of Bin Laden's camps said he was instructed how to put cyanide in a building's ventilation system.

The tins of tomatoes could have been used to transport cyanide crystals before they were dissolved into a liquid, which could then be dispersed through the ventilation ducts. If large quantities were available, the vapour produced could kill many occupants of a building within 10 minutes.

The transcripts are part of evidence compiled by Stefano Dambruoso, an Italian prosecutor, against five suspected members of the Salafist Group for Faith and Combat, a militant offshoot of the Armed Islamic Group (GIA), backed by Bin Laden. The five are in custody in Milan. At least two had links to Britain.

Last Friday the US Treasury named the Islamic Cultural Institute in Milan, to which cell members were linked, as "the most important base of Al-Qaeda in Europe". It said the institute was used by Bin Laden's organisation "as a station from which weapons, men and money travel the whole world".

The clandestine recordings were made in March and April, when gang members were becoming impatient to receive instructions from Bin Laden and to be told the target. They also reveal claims that female followers of Bin Laden were being trained as potential suicide attackers.

The most chilling conversations took place between Ben Heni Mohamed Lased, a 32-year-old Libyan arrested in Munich last week, and Essid Sami Ben Khemais, 31, a Tunisian, believed to be the leader of the Italian cell, who was arrested in Milan in April. Khemais is believed to have met Mohammed Atta, one of the 19 hijackers behind the American attacks.

Khemais and Lased spent a week in an apartment near Milan to plan terrorist atrocities, unaware it was bugged. Lased is heard trying to teach Khemais to conceal a bomb in a personal cassette player, to which Khemais responds by asking about chemical weapons: "I'd like to learn how to use the medicine, I'd like to see what effect it has when someone breathes it in. The Libyan has the formula; he's a chemistry professor."

Another activist said: "What's going on - you are putting down your guns and taking up industrial products?" Lased replied: "There's a liquid which is extremely efficient because it suffocates people. Do you want to try it?" The other man said: "Yes, why not. A few barrels."

In another conversation, Khemais urges Lased to get in touch with "the sheikh", believed to be Bin Laden, about recruiting attackers.

"Talk to the sheikh. I need two people who I have already got in mind, the Libyan and the Kurd from London. What I need is not an army but two people who have got a brain, training and nothing to lose or to gain. They spread the gas and say goodbye. I only need a barrel of 10 litres and a few documents. God is with us."

On the evening of March 9, Lased confided: "Believe me, the sheikh is planning something. He has an objective and he wants to realise it, just like he has achieved all his desires. It's not a little thing."

Predicting the success of Bin Laden's terror campaign, Lased said: "God loves us because Europe is now in our hands. Now we are emigrant fighters, that's the task we've got to carry out with honour. We have to be like snakes. We have to fight and then hide."

Lased also explains how to reach Bin Laden's training camps by obtaining a visa from Iran's London embassy, ostensibly for visiting Mecca. "In Iran there is an organisation which helps mujaheddin brothers to cross the border. There's total collaboration with the Iranians," he said.

Khemais talked about trips to Afghanistan during which he saw Bin Laden's weapons, including captured US cruise missiles launched against the camps in 1998 but which failed to explode.

"The Americans are probably convinced that bombing the sheikh's training camps was a victory, but the truth is it was a defeat. Most of the weapons didn't even explode and they have enriched the sheikh's arsenal," he claimed.

-- Anonymous, October 14, 2001