Suspect and A Setback In Al-Qaeda Anthrax Case

The heavily redacted notes and other documents were obtained from the Defense Department through the Freedom of Information Act after they were first described in the journal Science in a 2003 article by three researchers at the National Defense University. Rauf's name was redacted, but U.S. and Pakistani officials confirmed his authorship in interviews with The Washington Post. Rauf's name was first publicly associated with the documents by Ross Getman, a New York lawyer who maintains a Web site devoted to the 2001 anthrax attacks.

Rauf was a member of the Society for Applied Microbiology, an international professional organization based in Britain, and he appears to have used his membership to make contacts and arrange visits related to his quest. One note from Rauf was handwritten on the group's stationery, apparently while he was attending a 1999 scientific conference at Porton Down, Britain's premier biodefense research center in the southern city of Wiltshire.

Rauf, who writes to Zawahiri in occasionally faltering English, admits in one note to several setbacks. For starters, he had found a supplier who could sell him Bacillus anthracis -- the bacterium that causes anthrax -- but it was a harmless strain incapable of killing anyone.

"Unfortunately, I did not find the required culture of B. anthrax -- i.e., pathogenic," he writes to Zawahiri. He then describes a new attempt to acquire a lethal strain from a different lab.

In a later note he is more upbeat, telling his patron he had "successfully achieved the targets" and had "tried to solve technical problems of our work." He ticked off a list of items he had acquired or arranged to purchase, including respirators, a fermenter used for growing bacteria and vaccines to protect lab workers against accidental exposure.

Rauf also describes an unusual visit -- apparently as the guest of another scientist -- to a high-containment biological lab where dangerous pathogens such as anthrax are kept.

"I visited along with [the host] all the units . . . including the special confidential room in which thousands of cultures are placed," the note reads.

Another handwritten note includes a crude diagram of a biological lab, identifying how space should be allocated for major tasks such as animal testing and growing bacteria.

A recurring theme in the notes is money, or Rauf's apparent lack of it. He complains in one note that his salary was cut while he was on leave from his job for postdoctoral research. "This is highly objectionable, unaffordable and unpracticable with me," he writes.

Rauf's money demands may have led to a falling-out with Zawahiri, who appears to have decided to explore other options for obtaining bacteria and lab equipment, said Rohan Gunaratna, an al-Qaeda expert with the Institute of Defense and Strategic Studies in Singapore.

Gunaratna said al-Qaeda leaders also collaborated with Yazid Sufaat, a member of an allied Southeast Asian group called Jemaah Islamiyah, in purchasing equipment for the Kandahar lab. Sufaat, who once studied chemistry at California State University at Sacramento, has been in custody since late 2001.

"Rauf was financially driven, and al-Qaeda didn't entirely trust him," Gunaratna said.