November 11, 2001
Al Qaeda Sites Point to Tests of Chemicals
By JAMES RISEN and JUDITH MILLER
ASHINGTON, Nov. 10 — The United States has identified sites in Afghanistan that are suspected of involvement in Osama bin Laden's efforts to acquire and produce chemical and biological weapons, but none have been bombed since the military campaign began, according to American military and intelligence officials.

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.

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.

Cyanide gas can be used to kill small numbers of people, but it is not easily deployed on a large scale, officials say. The intelligence reports indicating cyanide gas production bolster the United States intelligence community's overall assessment that Al Qaeda is eager to obtain weapons of mass destruction but so far has only developed crude capabilities, several officials said.

In addition to the Derunta chemical weapons site, American intelligence and military officials say a fertilizer plant in Mazar-i- Sharif, which the Northern Alliance captured on Friday, had been under the control of the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

American officials say the fertilizer plant is near a compound that has been used by Osama bin Laden and his organization, and intelligence analysts suspected that Al Qaeda had been interested in the plant because its equipment can be used to produce either biological or chemical weapons.

The fertilizer plant "is high on everybody's list" of sites suspected of involvement in Al Qaeda's chemical and biological weapons efforts, a United States military official said. It is not clear whether the Northern Alliance offensive has taken the plant out of Taliban and Al Qaeda control.

An anthrax-vaccine site in Kabul has also raised concerns among intelligence analysts. The International Committee of the Red Cross had been believed to be operating the plant, which was established to produce vaccine for livestock in Afghanistan to protect them from anthrax.

But American intelligence officials now say they do not believe the Red Cross controls the site, and Red Cross officials acknowledge that while it has provided funds for the plant, it is being operated by the Taliban's Ministry of Agriculture.

A senior State Department official said that American experts had told him it would be difficult for Al Qaeda to use the anthrax-vaccine plant to produce anthrax weapons, and Red Cross officials have said the material produced in the laboratory is harmless. But American officials say they still believe that it is important to deny Al Qaeda operatives access to such a laboratory and any equipment it might contain.

Senior officials at the White House, the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency refused to say why the suspect sites have not been bombed one month into the American military campaign. White House officials declined to comment when asked if the decision not to bomb the sites represented a high-level decision by the administration.