Al-Qaeda Program to Make WMD Halted by Afghan War

Monday, January 26, 2004

(1:44 PM ET)

The Associated Press

Yazid has told Malaysian authorities the program was in its "conceptual stages" when it was abandoned when the U.S.-led attack on the Taliban started in October 2001. Hambali has given U.S. interrogators some information on the weapons program but not much detail, and Yazid is believed to know more specifics.

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia -- AP
An al-Qaeda program to develop chemical and biological weapons was in the early "conceptual stages" when it was cut short by the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan, U.S. and Malaysian security officials told the Associated Press.

The information on the state of Osama bin Laden's weapons plan came from interrogations of terrorist suspects captured in Southeast Asia and from clues gathered in the Afghan battlefield, the authorities said.

The project was being developed in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Officials believe the program was being run by Yazid Sufaat, a former Malaysian army captain and U.S.-trained biochemist, under the direction of Riduan Isamuddin, or Hambali, an Indonesian accused of heading al-Qaeda's operations in Southeast Asia.

Both men are suspected members of Jemaah Islamiyah, an al-Qaeda-linked Islamic extremist group.

Yazid was arrested in December 2001 as he returned to Malaysia from Afghanistan. Hambali was arrested last August in Thailand and is in U.S. custody at an undisclosed location.

(More: USATODAY.com)

2003 © The Associated Press.

Dan