from http://www.hindustantimes.com/nonfram/291101/detfro03.asp
Pak N-scientists had plans to deliver anthrax by balloonThis obviously could have been perfected and carried out...thank the benevolent forces that nip stuff like this in the bud.
Agencies
(New York/London, Nov. 28)
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Sketches and calculations to make a helium-powered balloon bomb filled with anthrax have been found from the Kabul office of an NGO headed by Bashiruddin Mehmood, one of the two Pakistani nuclear scientists detained in October in Islamabad for alleged links with Osama bin Laden.
Such a balloon bomb was capable of showering anthrax over areas as vast as New York or Washington DC. The "most chilling" items found included small bags of white powder and drawings of weather balloons.Pakistan said on Wednesday that it had detained Mehmood and another retired nuclear scientist Chaudhry Abdul Majeed.
After he retired, Mehmood founded a private relief organisation Ummah Tameer-e-Nau (UTN). Documents from UTN's offices seem to show a possible method for slowly dispersing some type of biological or chemical agent from balloons. Words scribbled in the diagram appear to say 'cyanide'.
Also found were a box of gas masks, a diagram showing a plane shooting down a weather balloon and promotional material from militant Islamic groups. One diagram found in the Kabul offices show four balloons flying together in tandem with a box around them. The box appears to show how the agent would be dispersed across a wide area.
Why the Taliban considered the concept is unknown, but terror experts said it was far from an ideal method.
Said Dr Ashok Gadgil, a biological terror expert and senior staff scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, biological agents released outdoors would be so widely dispersed as to be useless. Pinpoint release of the bio-agents over, say, a city, would be difficult with a balloon. Dr Gadgil said: "It doesn't sound like a very good game plan."
Dose of Terror
Sketches found in office of Kabul NGO headed by Bashiruddin Mehmood, a Pak nuke scientist with Taliban links
One diagram showed a long balloon with a sketch of a jet flying towards the balloon alongside the words: 'Your days are limited! Bang'
Another diagram suggested anti-aircraft missiles could be fired at the balloon to get it to release its contents
Such a balloon bomb is capable of showering anthrax over areas as vast as New York
When we neither punish nor reproach evildoers ... we are ripping the foundations of justice from beneath future generations.