Top U.S. intelligence officials say that the anthrax attacks on Washington, New York and other cities are most likely done by one or more extremists in the United States, disconnecting the bioterrorist attacks from Osama bin Laden's Qaida terrorist organization.
There are wide suspicion in America that the anthrax attacks over the past weeks have links with the Qaida terrorist organization, accused of carrying out the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and Pentagon in Washington on September 11.
None of the 60 to 80 threat reports gathered daily by FBI and CIA has linked the anthrax attacks to Qaida or other organized terrorist organizations, according to International Herald Tribune Monday.
"Everything seems to lean toward a domestic source," the paper quoted officials as saying, adding that "nothing seems to fit with an overseas terrorist type operation."
The United States have been hit by anthrax soon after it launched military actions against Afghanistan three weeks ago in retaliation for the September 11 terrorist assaults on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.
On Sunday, a female U.S. postal worker was confirmed with inhalation anthrax, the eighth case of inhalation anthrax in the United States. So far three Americans have died of the inhaled form of anthrax.
( Xinhua News Agency 10/30/2001)
