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Workers At U.S. Army Lab to Get Polygraphs in Anthrax Probe
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| Anthrax strikes again at the World Bank |
WASHINGTON,
May 21 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – Still unknown is who sent
the deadly anthrax laced letters to prominent Americans last year. Now
the U.S. government is to administer lie-detector tests to as many as
200 current and former employees of U.S. military laboratories as part
of its investigation into the attacks, ABC News reported Monday.
The
television network quoted sources as saying investigators were hoping
to rule out the laboratories as the source of the anthrax used in the
attacks.
ABC
said among the laboratories targeted by the probe is Fort Detrick in
Maryland, which specializes in the study of biological threats and
endemic diseases of military concern.
Five
people died in the United States last year after envelopes containing
anthrax spores were mailed to the U.S Congress and members of the
media, disrupting mail service and temporarily shutting down
Congressional offices.
Early
on in the attacks, reports circulated that the anthrax attacks may be
tied in with the attacks on September 11. However, shortly thereafter,
the FBI sent out a profile of the suspected attacker, saying he was
most likely male, living in the U.S., and using the time immediately
after September 11 to send out the letters to divert attention away
from himself.
The
FBI has asserted that the anthrax attacks were in no way connected to
the attacks on September 11.
Investigators
believe the anthrax used in the attacks was produced in the United
States, reportedly from stocks originating at Fort Detrick.
Investigators
say they will concentrate on those workers who have knowledge and
experience in the handling of the deadly substance as well as those
who have access to it.
About
1,200 employees of the World Bank located in Washington D.C. were
evacuated Monday and will remain home for the next couple of days
after a machine testing mail for anthrax sounded an alarm, a bank
official said.
"A
small batch of mail this morning tested positive for anthrax,"
said Caroline Enstey, a spokeswoman for the bank.
She
said a subsequent, more thorough, test of the mail came in negative,
but bank management still decided to send the employees working in a
World Bank annex on the corner of 18th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue
home early.
The
building that houses the bank's African division and the World Bank
Institute, its training arm, was vacated at about at 4:00 pm (2000
GMT), Enstey said.
"It's
very much a precautionary measure," she said. "They were
told to work at home for the next couple of days."
The
suspicious mail, meanwhile, has been sent for a third and even more
sophisticated test to make sure it is clean of anthrax, according to
Enstey.
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