Al-Qaeda Studied Attacking U.S. Food Supply, Senator Says

Coalition forces searching suspected al-Qaeda hideouts in Afghanistan last year found hundreds of pages of U.S. agricultural documents, indicating that the terrorist group was interested in conducting attacks on the U.S. food supply, Senate Governmental Affairs Committee Chairwoman Susan Collins (R-Maine) said last week (see GSN, Nov. 21).

“Al-Qaeda’s interest in agriculture is not limited to studying documents,” Collins said during a committee hearing. “These killers have practical hands-on knowledge,” she said.

In addition, a May CIA report said that the terrorists who had been involved in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks had been interested in crop-dusting aircraft, which are “an effective and remarkably simple way” to spread biological agents such as plant and animal diseases, Collins said. She also said that Osama bin Laden “has considerable knowledge of agriculture” and may have used his farms in Sudan to train al-Qaeda operatives (Dave Ahern, Navy News, Nov. 24).

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