Anthrax letters dated September 11

Three letters contaminated with anthrax all were dated September 11, the same day as the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, and contained anti-American and anti-Israel messages, US officials said.

The Justice Department released copies of the letters yesterday as it sought help from the public in identifying those responsible for the postal attacks that have killed three Americans and exposed more than a dozen others to anthrax.

The identical dates are yet another indication that the anthrax attacks were co-ordinated.

Authorities have already said the strain of anthrax in the New York and Washington letters and bacteria found at a Florida publishing company were similar. The three letters were all postmarked from Trenton, New Jersey.

Letters sent to NBC TV news anchor Tom Brokaw and the New York Post appeared identical. Both warned recipients to ‘‘Take penacilin (sic) now’’, and also said, ‘‘Death to America’’, ‘‘Death to Israel’’ and ‘‘Allah is Great".

The envelope that contained the New York Post letter was written in the same sort of capital letters, slanted to the right, as two envelopes addressed to Brokaw and Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, released earlier.

The letter to Daschle contained seven lines written in block letters similar to the other two. ‘‘You can not stop us. We have this anthrax. You die now. Are you afraid? Death to America. Death to Israel. Allah is great.’’

Atop all three notes was the date ‘‘09-11-01’’ in identical handwriting. The letters to Brokaw and the New York Post were postmarked September 18. The Daschle letter was postmarked October 9.

US Attorney General John Ashcroft said investigators hoped to garner new leads by releasing photographs of the letters and to warn Americans of mail to be wary of.

‘‘All of these ... we hope will alert citizens and others to the kind of thing to look for,’’ said Ashcroft.

Despite the dates on the letters, Ashcroft said authorities could not prove a link to the men who carried out the airliner attacks last month.

The FBI is investigating whether additional anthrax-laced letters have been sent. The White House yesterday said anthrax was discovered in an off-site mail centre. The origin of the anthrax was unknown.

Mail handled at the off-site centre is processed through a postal facility on Capitol Hill that processed the Daschle letter.

Experts in profiling criminals viewed the release of the letters and the identical dates as indications that investigators believe they are dealing with a domestic terrorist capitalising on the September 11 attacks.

They noted that authorities caught Theodore Kaczynski, the so-called Unabomber, after releasing his 35,000-word ‘‘manifesto,’’ which was recognised by Kaczynski’s brother.

‘‘The key is access to the bacteria,’’ said Robert K Ressler, a former FBI criminal profiler.

Investigators have questioned researchers at labs and universities that may have access to anthrax.

The attacks could also be the work of foreign terrorists operating on US soil or a domestic player assisted by foreign elements, said Ressler.