WASHINGTON, Oct. 27 (UPI) -- The FBI and CIA believe extremists in the United States are responsible for the anthrax attacks on Washington, New York and Florida, The Washington Post reported Saturday.
"Everything seems to lean toward a domestic source," one senior official said. "Nothing seems to fit with an overseas terrorist type operation."
Officials say there are no clear suspects and no evidence against suspected terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden and his al Qaida network.
The evidence from the envelopes containing anthrax spores so far provides no solid link to a foreign government or laboratory, several officials said, according to The Post.
Bush administration officials also are increasingly concerned that the germ warfare agent attacks have diverted public attention from the larger threat posed by bin Laden and his network, who are believed to be planning a second wave of attacks against U.S. interests here or abroad that could come at any time.
"Nobody believes the anthrax scare we are going through is" the next wave of terrorism, one senior official said. "There is no intelligence on it and it does not fit any [al Qaida] pattern."
A postal facility at which workers were already taking precautionary antibiotics tested positive for anthrax, a Postal Service official confirmed Friday. The Washington postal facility, the Southwest Post Office, has been closed down.
The Supreme Court Friday confirmed a trace of anthrax was found on an air filter at an undisclosed location away from the main court building across the street from the U.S. Capitol. Nevertheless the main building was closed for testing and all Supreme Court employees were given tests for anthrax exposure.
Washington area postal facilities are having 20 bacteria killing electron beam processors installed through which mail will be sterilized beginning sometime next month.
A government official told the Post "everything seems to lean toward a domestic source" of the anthrax. The FBI and Postal Inspection Service are considering a wide range of possibilities, including right-wing hate groups and U.S. residents sympathetic to Middle East extremists.
The officials are becoming less persuaded that all the Washington anthrax is the product of a single letter to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle that leaked spores on postal processing equipment and on to other pieces of mail and finally to separate buildings on Capitol Hill. But so far inspections of massive amounts of mail have turned up no other anthrax laced letters.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Jeffrey Koplan Friday said a State Department employee who tested positive for inhalation anthrax would have almost certainly had to come into contact with an anthrax letter in order to be exposed to the volume of spores necessary to trigger the pulmonary form of the disease.
The CDC Friday widened considerably the circle of those eligible for anthrax vaccine, including those working in decontamination sites and laboratory technicians who handle testing samples.
So far, three people have died of anthrax infections, including the first victim, a photo editor at the Sun supermarket tabloid newspaper. Another four people are being treated for confirmed inhaled anthrax and six contracted the skin form of the disease. The number of people receiving antibiotics in New York and Washington is believed to be more than 10,000.
