Obscure 'Al-Qaida' Chemist Worries US
Charles J. Hanley
AP
Seattle Post Intelligencer
___________________
Alexandia (Egypt):
He's a mystery in a red beard, with a strange alias and a degree in chemical engineering. In the hands of this alleged al-Qaida operative, it's a specialty that summons visions of poison gas and mass terror.
Al-Qaida is "wedded to the spectacular," notes U.S. counterterrorism analyst Donald Van Duyn, and elusive Egyptian chemist Midhat Mursi was said to be exploring such possibilities when last seen, brewing up deadly compounds and gassing dogs in Afghanistan.
Van Duyn's FBI and other U.S. agencies are interested enough in Mursi to have posted a $5 million reward this year for his capture.
Egypt's government reportedly is interested enough to have seized and locked up his two sons in an effort to track down the father.The U.S. reward poster says the alleged bombmaker, also known as Abu Khabab, literally "Father of the Trotting Horse," may be in Pakistan.
But "we don't think there's really a good fix on where he is," Van Duyn said in a Washington interview.A son of Alexandria's al-Asafirah, a noisy seaside district of rutted streets and crowded housing, Mursi, 52, graduated from Alexandria University in 1975.The London center says Mursi left Egypt in 1987 for Saudi Arabia, and then Afghanistan, where Egyptian militants joined the war against Soviet occupation.
Dec 03, 2005
Charles J. Hanley
AP
Seattle Post Intelligencer
___________________
Alexandia (Egypt):
He's a mystery in a red beard, with a strange alias and a degree in chemical engineering. In the hands of this alleged al-Qaida operative, it's a specialty that summons visions of poison gas and mass terror.
Al-Qaida is "wedded to the spectacular," notes U.S. counterterrorism analyst Donald Van Duyn, and elusive Egyptian chemist Midhat Mursi was said to be exploring such possibilities when last seen, brewing up deadly compounds and gassing dogs in Afghanistan.
Van Duyn's FBI and other U.S. agencies are interested enough in Mursi to have posted a $5 million reward this year for his capture.
Egypt's government reportedly is interested enough to have seized and locked up his two sons in an effort to track down the father.The U.S. reward poster says the alleged bombmaker, also known as Abu Khabab, literally "Father of the Trotting Horse," may be in Pakistan.
But "we don't think there's really a good fix on where he is," Van Duyn said in a Washington interview.A son of Alexandria's al-Asafirah, a noisy seaside district of rutted streets and crowded housing, Mursi, 52, graduated from Alexandria University in 1975.The London center says Mursi left Egypt in 1987 for Saudi Arabia, and then Afghanistan, where Egyptian militants joined the war against Soviet occupation.
Dec 03, 2005
