The first encounter with anthrax occurred in Holy Cross Hospital in Fort Lauderdale, Florida in June 2001. Ahmed Alhaznawi, who identified himself as a pilot, was brought to the emergency room by an associate, also claiming to be a pilot. The emergency was that he had an ugly, black lesion on his leg. Dr. Christos Tsonas examined it, but was unable to identify the pathogen involved since he had not previously seen a black lesion of that type. Alhaznawi told him it had been caused by a bump. So he prescribed an antibiotic for the infection. In September, it was discovered that Ahmed Alhaznawi was one of the hijackers of United Airlines Flight 93. Dr. Tsonas prescription was found in his room in Florida. In October, Dr. Tsonas was shown pictures of black lesions caused by anthrax by experts at the Johns Hopkins Center for Civilian Bio- defense Strategies. He concluded from these photos and other information about Anthrax that the lesion he had examined in June had been caused by handling anthrax. He stated for the record that the lesion "was consistent with cutaneous (skin) anthrax." If so, Alhaznawi and his associate had lied to Dr. Tsonas to conceal their contact with Anthrax bacteria. This would suggest that at least two of the terrorist hijackers were involved in the first incident. The Second Encounter: August or September 2001 The second encounter with Anthrax occurred in around September 2001 at the headquarters of American Media, inc in Boca Raton, Florida . The 66,000 square foot office building was completely contaminated with anthrax spores, causing the death of an employee, Robert Stevens on October 2nd. Since the incubation period for anthrax can be four weeks or more, the date of the attack cannot be narrowed down to before or after September 11th. No warning, letter or envelope was found in this attack. Nor is not known how the anthrax was delivered. The attacker could have sent it in a letter or package, or he (or they) could have hand- delivered it to the building. Since Anthrax spores were distributed throughout the building not just in the mail room its point of origin is unknown. (That traces found in local post offices does not solve the mystery since they could have been the result of cross-contamination from American Media's outgoing rather than its incoming mail.) The only evidence in this second attack is the anthrax recovered from the body Robert Stevens. The anthrax was identified as the virulent Ames strain. When the DNA was analyzed by the Institute for Genetic research (TIGR) it was determined that the source of anthrax was samples of the Ames strain at either the US Army Medical Research Institute at Fort Detrick or the CAMR lab at Porton Downs in Britain (It could not distinguish between them.) Since these are closed facilities, an employee of one of these two labs, acting either an agent for a state or acting on his own behalf, stole a trace of the sample. The theft could have occurred any time in the past 12 years. Such a theft would not be difficult for someone with access since it would require only a microscopic amount indeed, a quantity that could be smuggled out in a pencil point. Since there was no warning, ultimatum or propaganda found in the building, this attack may have served as a test. The attackers presumably wanted to determine the lethality of the anthrax mixture, its ability to disperse and the response time of US bio-terror defenses. If so, they presumably were close enough to the attack site to assess the results. The Third Encounter: September 18th, 2001 On Sept 18th 2001, two identical anthrax-laced letters, with no return address, were sent from Trenton to NBC and the New York Post in New York City. The photocopied letters contained both a warning and a message in eighteen block- written words. It warned that an anthrax attack was "next" and advised the letter- openers to take "penacilin," thus alerting the medical system. The message was: "Death to America, Death to Israel, Allah is Great." The anthrax in both letters was from the same Ames strain used in the first attack. It was prepared in dry powder form. Since the samples at the US Army Medical Research Institute at Fort Detrick or the CAMR lab at Porton Downs in Britain were in wet slurry form, someone had to grow and prepare the attack anthrax. So there were at least 3 roles involved in this anthrax attack: The theft of the sample, which required access to one of two government labs; the preparation, which required biotech equipment, such as a centrifuge, and a mailer, which required a person in Trenton, NJ on September 18th. Since these letters were sent to both a national and local news organization, and accompanied by letters, the attack may have been designed as a media alert. The Fourth Encounter: October 9th, 2001 On October 9th, two anthrax-laced envelopes were sent to two Democratic Senators, Senator Tom Daschle and Senator Patrick Leahy in Washington DC. Both contained identical photo- copies letters. The message stated "You can not stop us. We have this anthrax." By using the plural "we" and "us," the attack party described itself as a conspiracy. The enclosed letters contained billions of such spores of the same virulent Ames strain as the second and third encounter. Many spores were as small as one micron in diameter (one-twentieth of a human hair). The tiny size made these virulent spores into aerosol weapons capable of infecting the entire United States Congress. The difference in the size of the anthrax is the third and fourth encounter demonstrated that the attacker had an operational lab, capable of progressively refining and weaponizing the anthrax. The facility, at a minimum, would have to be constructed to avoid any leakage of spores while they were sequentially filtered and moved from glass slides into envelopes. Since large spore counts can defeat both antibiotics and vaccine-induced immunity, the preparers of the attack anthrax themselves require protection akin to a Biosafety Level 3 facility, in which lab workers use either moon suits or gloved boxes. The inability of the FBI to find this lab, despite a massive investigations, indicated that the lab is either extremely well stealthed or located abroad outside the purview of US investigators. By the fourth encounter, the attacking party, which had identified itself as a group in the letters, demonstrated that: 1) it had penetrated a well-guarded American or British bio-warfare facility with an agent with access to the Ames Strain. 2) it had the equipment and technology to create new batches of anthrax, weaponized it and insert billions of spores in envelopes. 3) it had the means to deliver it anonymously through the mails. 4) It had enough security around its apparatus to remain undetected.