NYPost

HAZ-MAT TEAMS SEARCH PAKISTANI HOMES IN PA.

By NEIL GRAVES and ANDY SOLTIS

November 14, 2001 -- About 30 FBI agents and hazardous-material experts searched two homes owned by native Pakistanis near Philadelphia yesterday, but officials refused to say if they were looking for biological or chemical agents.

Some of the haz-mat experts wore heavy, protective gear as they searched the houses in Chester, Pa.

Authorities said they questioned the city's health commissioner, Irshad Shaikh, who owns one of the houses.

Shaikh has a Ph.D. in epidemiology and public health from Johns Hopkins University.

Investigators also questioned Shaikh's brother, Masood Shaikh, who is in charge of Chester's lead-abatement program.

The second home belongs to Chester's city accountant, Asif Kazi.

Meanwhile, in Washington, the State Department said it was looking for a new anthrax-laced letter after contamination was found in eight of 55 tests taken at a remote mail facility in Virginia.

Dr. Steven Ostroff, an anthrax expert at the Centers for Disease Control, said that, "based on the bulk of the evidence," the agency believes there's a tainted letter yet to be discovered in the State Department system.

After a State Department mail handler fell ill with anthrax last month, officials speculated that it resulted from cross-contamination with a letter mailed to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle.

But positive tests of three mail-sorting machines at the department's facility in Sterling, Va., where the handler was stricken, increased suspicions there was yet another letter.

So far, probers have located three tainted letters sent to Daschle, NBC anchor Tom Brokaw and the New York Post.

They are still searching for a letter mailed to a Florida tabloid-publishing company, American Media Inc., where two employees contracted the disease, one fatally.With Post Wire Services

-- Anonymous, November 14, 2001

Answers

They are still searching for a letter mailed to a Florida tabloid-publishing company, American Media Inc., where two employees contracted the disease, one fatally. With Post Wire Services

Here's a clue: AMI incinerates their trash, and doesn't keep correspondence. This was reported some time ago, early on in the investigation in Florida. Get a clue, guys!

-- Anonymous, November 14, 2001

Yes, it was widely reported too.

-- Anonymous, November 14, 2001