Public anxiety was stoked by a pliant media, handy academics, and hysterical MP's. The Deputy Chief Medical Officer issued a public health notifications on 7th January. The Shadow Defence Secretary Bernard Jenkin on 15 January stated on the Today Programme that "we are dealing with suicide bombers". You couldn't move in the TV studios for serious sounding and looking academics telling us how Ricin poisoned millions would succumb in an Armageddon like cloud of ricin in minutes.

Evil International Islamic Links

These events occurred following a series of arrests of other "Islamist radicals" in Rome, Paris, and London who may have been linked to al-Qa'eda network, elements such as the Groupe Salafiste pour la Predication et le Combat (GSPC: Salafist Group for Preaching and Fighting) in Algeria, or the Algerian Groupe Islamique Armée (GIA: Armed Islamic Group).

Recently, US officials are reported to have said that four of the North Kondon Islamists were "associates" of a mysterious and fugitive al-Qa'eda leader whose nom de guerre is Abu Mus'ab al-Zarqawi. Al-Zarqawi is claimed to be a chemical warfare specialist and has been accused by Jordanian authorities of organizing the foiled January 2000 "Millenium" plot to bomb Amman hotels and the October 2002 assassination of American diplomat Lawrence Foley in Amman. (Al Jazeera satellite station in February 2004, which has frequently aired al-Qa'eda videos, also broadcast an appeal – allegedly from Abu Musab Zarkawi. On the broadcast, Mr Zarkawi allegedly said: "Here is America among us. So, come take revenge on it and extinguish your thirst with its blood.") On 4 December 2002 al-Zarqawi's alleged deputy, al-Qa'eda operative Abu'Abd Allah al-Shami, was murdered in Kurdistan Iraq during a surprise Ansar al-Islam attack on Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) forces.

Zarqawi, a 38-year old Jordanian radical, said by some to be Afghan and by others a Jordanian Bedouin, lost a leg in a US missile strike on his Afghan base and hopped it to Iraq. He is also accused on the basis of an alleged letter, which surfaced in Amman from Zarqawi to have masterminded the recent string of spectacular anti-Shia suicide bombings in Iraq. In 2003, he was named as the brains behind a series of suicide bombings – from Casablanca in Morocco to Istanbul in Turkey.

The "facts" keep changing. According to the US, Zarqawi was first a "close associate of [Osama] bin Laden", then his relationship to bin Laden became "uncertain", before he was back to being a "close associate".

One official US statement said Ansar claimed that Zarqawi was a "senior al-Qa'eda operative", then later only "suspected" of being some kind of affiliate. Until two weeks ago, he was considered the leader of Ansar al-Islam. Now they say he heads a Jordanian extremist group called al-Tawhid, and only linked to al-Qaeda and other groups.

Ricin: Technical background

Ricin is a large protein found in castor bean plant Ricinis communis.a member of the Euphorbiaceae which has many members containing toxic products. In its pure toxic form, Ricin is composed of 2 hemaglutinins and 2 toxins. The toxins RCL III and RCL IV are dimers of approximately 66,000 Daltons in molecular weight. The toxins have an "A" and a "B" chain, which are polypeptides and joined by a disulfide bond. The B chain binds to cell surface glycoproteins and affects entry into the cell by an unknown mechanism. The A chain acts on the 60S ribosomal subunit and prevents the binding of elongation factor-2. This inhibits protein synthesis and leads to cell death. This basic structure of ricin is similar to those of the botulinum toxin, cholera toxin, diphtheria toxin, tetanus toxin, and insulin.

Herodotus described how the Egyptians used castor oil and have been found in the tombs of the pharaohs. Castrol(tm) has utilized castor beans for engine oils since 1909

Preparation of the extract is widely documented and is subject to a US patent of October 23rd 1962 No 3060165. However you won't find it on the US Patent Office website -simply the message "patent not found".

However The European Patent office website v3.espacenet.com/origdoc?DB=EPOCDOC&IDX=US3060165&QPN=US3060165 will yield a copy of the patent which can also be found on the German Patent Office depatisnet.dpma.de by selecting the language of choice and entering a search on the Country and Patent Number.

Whilst ricin can be extracted, it's purification, storage, aerosolisation requires very precisely conditions, considerable expertise and sophisticated equipment. Ricin is a very large molecule and like insulin, which it resembles, there is no pathway other than directly into the bloodstream. It was this route which was used by the Bulgarians in killing the dissident Georgii Markov in a London Street with a hypodermic syringe mounted in the tip of an umbrella. In this instance the toxin was contained in a very carefully fabricated metal ball or shot made in a rare inert metal.

Gary Matyas of the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in Silver Spring, Maryland, reports research this week in Nature, on recent vaccine trials on mice to a meeting of the American Society for Microbiology in Baltimore, Maryland.

The researchers took a harmless fragment of the ricin molecule, called RTA 1-33/44-198, and gave it to mice as a liquid drop directly on the skin or as an impregnated patch. After breathing a fine mist of tiny ricin particles (dose unstated or unknown), all of the mice given the liquid vaccine survived, whereas untreated animals were poisoned. A reliable vaccine for human use is probably 10 years away.

If injected into the bloodstream, ricin has been estimated to be lethal at 70 micrograms for a person weighing about 160 pounds. Using ricin to cause mass casualties would require either its aerosolization by means of a dispersal device or its addition to food and beverages as a contaminant. Such methods would require extensive prior research, development, operational planning, and testing, and are beyond the means of most terrorists.

Ricin, while explicitly prohibited as a toxin weapon by the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC), is also listed in Schedule 1 of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC).

Letters have recently turned up in the US Postal System and in the office of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) which are "suspected" to have been dusted with "poisonous Ricin powder". Elaborate and lengthy tests have shown no evidence at all.

Evil Islamic Poison Cook Book and Cooks

Ricin production instructions were found in an undated al-Qa'eda military manual, 'I'alan al-Jihad 'ala al-Tawaghit al-Bilad [Declaration of Jihad Against the Country's Tyrants], a copy of which was seized in 2002 by the Manchester police. This particular flimsy cyclostyled booklet is obviously copied from The Poisoner's Handbook (1988), an underground pamphlet that was originally published and distributed in the United States.

In March 2002 trace amounts of Bacillus anthracis (anthrax) spores and ricin were found at five or six of the approximately 110 sites searched by coalition forces in Afghanistan, but the trace evidence was insufficient to permit an accurate determination at any of the sites.

In August 2002, there have been unconfirmed and probably spurious reports that the Kurdish Islamist group Ansar al-Islam (Supporters of Islam),said to have contact both al-Qa`ida and Iran, tested ricin on barnyard animals and possibly also on an unwitting human who later died.

In November 1990, Iraq declared to UNSCOM the production of 10 liters of ricin from 100 kg of castor beans and claimed it was used up in field testing in 155 mm artillery shells, and that its efforts to weaponize ricin ended in failure

Evil one legged, dead,Islamic Fundamentalist behind Evil poisoning scheme

It must be remembered that in February 2003, Colin Powell, having detailed evidence for Iraq's huge arsenal of weapons of mass destruction, proceeded to argue for an attack on Iraq using the additional allegation of long-standing ties between Baghdad and al-Qa'eda. The keystone in his argument was that "Iraq today harbors a deadly terrorist network headed by Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi an associate and collaborator of Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda lieutenants." Zarqawi, Powell also alleged, "traveled to Baghdad in May of 2002 for medical treatment, staying in the capital of Iraq for two months while he recuperated to fight another day." (It was said he had a leg amputated but Newsweek currently reports, "The stark fact is that we don't even know for sure how many legs Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi has").

"When our coalition ousted the Taliban [from Afghanistan], the Zarqawi network helped establish another poison and explosive training centre camp. And this camp is located in north-eastern Iraq," Mr Powell said. Regrettably the camp of which Mr Powell produced a somewhat grainy aerial view was bombed out of existence immediately the illegal invasion commenced (presumably by those pin-point accurate bombs they went equipped with), so any evidence to support this cast iron connection of Al Quaeda and Saddam Hussein was regrettably lost.

Most famously of course, according to the New York Post who reported on January 23rd 2004, U.S. forces raiding an "al-Qa'eda safe house" in Baghdad, discovered a CD-Rom with a letter to the al-Qa'eda inner circle. A helpful soul captured in the house said it was written by Zarqawi to al-Qa'eda. Curiously this story originated in the NYT and has now been claimed as fact to prove al-Qa'eda is linked to Zarqawi's terrorist role in Iraq. For those who like to be idly amused by the inventiveness of the press or their "secret" and secretive informants, German intelligence say Zarqawi is a rival of bin Laden, and his group, al-Tawhid, is opposed ideologically to al-Qa'eda. Asia Times on March 2 report "according to official US sources, Zarqawi's relationship to bin Laden is 'uncertain,' of the connection US Department of State recently warned that al-Qa'eda and Ansar are quite unrelated and independent of each other".

Other widely circulating reports or rumours say, Zarqawi is presently under arrest in Iran; Jordan wants to put him on trial and then in jail and have requested his extradition, but the Iranians say he has a Syrian passport. Again an AP press statement going the rounds in Iraq repeats the story that he was killed by an American bombing attack in the Sulaimaniya Mountains in Iraq.

Major-General Charles Swannack, head of the 82nd Airborne division in western Iraq, announced a bounty on the dead Zaeqawi of US$ 10.

No more news on Evil Islamist poison cooks

In case you are wondering what happened to the Wood Green 6 and the Bournemouth 5, well nothing has happened. No charges, no court appearances, except for Bourgas who has been charged with murder.

Blair Sedgefield Speech March 5th 2004

"…. The increasing amount of information about Islamic extremism and terrorism was crossing my desk…driven…by…religious fanaticism"

"I could see the threat plainly (from 9/11). Here were terrorists prepared to bring about Armageddon"

Well with all that solid "intelligence" crossing Tony's desk and passing through his fevered mind, we all have cause to worry about the threat of poisoning terrorists striking at the heart of our cities.

Edward Teague

et@softwaresystemseurope.com