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Plot to poison troops in Britain with ricin is suspected
James Risen with Don Van Natta Jr./NYT The New York Times
Friday, January 24, 2003
WASHINGTON Islamic militants arrested in Britain this month may have been plotting to lace the food supply on at least one British military base with the poison ricin, according to U.S. government officials. The revelations raised concerns in Britain and the United States about the security of allied forces as war preparations continue.

U.S. officials said they had received intelligence reports showing that British authorities suspect that a group of militants arrested there in a series of raids may have been attempting to gain access to the food supply on at least one military base in Britain. British officials found traces of ricin, a deadly toxin, in a London apartment where the first arrests were made in the case.

"It's a very live theory," said one U.S. law enforcement official familiar with the information from the British.

U.S. officials said that the reports showed that one of the suspects worked for a food preparation company and had been in contact with individuals who worked on at least one British military base.

The U.S. officials said they did not know the identity of the suspect.

They said they also did not know which British military base or bases may have been targets of the plot. Officials cautioned that the assessment is a working theory among British investigators, and that conclusive evidence has not yet been obtained.

"There are some investigators who believe the ricin was being developed to poison British troops," an American official said. "But we still have found no direct evidence between the ricin discovery and that kind of plot."

A spokesman for the British Home Office declined to comment on the reports.

But the potential threat has clearly heightened concern in Britain, where Prime Minister Tony Blair recently ordered an increase in the number of troops being deployed to the Middle East in preparation for joining the U.S. military if the United States uses force against Iraq.

Pentagon officials also said that they had ongoing fears about the potential for terrorists to attack the food and water supplies at U.S. bases. They said they had been taking precautions to protect American troops being deployed in the Gulf region and elsewhere overseas.

Few details of the British investigation have so far been made public, but the possibility that the plotters were planning to use a deadly toxin against British troops helps to explain why the British authorities have been moving so aggressively on the case in recent weeks.

On Jan. 5, the British anti-terrorist police found traces of ricin in a north London apartment. Six men were arrested on various terrorism-related charges. Some of the men were described as Algerians, but none has been identified publicly.

Ricin is derived from the castor bean, the same plant used to make laxatives and castor oil. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, the poison can exist in pellet form, mist or powder, and can dissolve in a liquid. The poison can be inhaled, injected or ingested, though studies have shown that ingestion causes the most damage with the least amount of ricin.

When ingested, ricin causes severe and rapid bleeding to the stomach and intestines. If the poison gets into the bloodstream, it can attack the liver, kidneys and spleen, often leading to death.

The initial discovery of traces of ricin led to an intensified series of arrests after the first raid. On Jan. 14, during a raid in Manchester that was linked by the authorities to the ricin discovery, at least one suspect fatally stabbed a British policeman and wounded four other anti-terrorist officers. Three men, described as being of North African descent, were arrested.

Shortly after midnight Monday, a team of 150 police officers used battering rams in a raid on a mosque in the Finsbury Park section of London, where seven men were arrested.

The mosque has long been suspected by the authorities in the United States and Britain as having connections to Al Qaeda. In the raid, officers seized a stun gun, a weapon that fires blanks and a gas canister. The authorities also said they had found a number of forged passports and hundreds of other documents related to forging identities.

In addition to the raids that have been publicized, law enforcement officials briefed on the continuing investigation said that British anti-terrorist police had conducted about 10 secret searches of homes and apartments connected to the inquiry in the last several weeks. The British authorities have not publicly linked the suspects to Al Qaeda, but one government official in London said there was evidence of significant links between the men and the terrorist network established by Osama bin Laden. That official said that at least one of the men in custody had been trained at a Qaeda camp in Afghanistan.

Several London newspapers reported this week that one of the Algerians was regarded as a key player in Al Qaeda, and had been sought for months by Scotland Yard. A senior U.S. government official confirmed that officials believed some of the men arrested at the mosque have strong Qaeda links, but the official cautioned that they may also be connected to a militant Algerian organization.

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