The FBI and CIA believe extremists in the United States, not followers of Saudi-born Osama bin Laden, are probably behind this month's anthrax attacks, the Washington Posthas reported.
Senior officials also are increasingly concerned the germ warfare agent attacks have diverted public attention from the larger threat posed by bin Laden and his al Qaeda network, the paper said today.
They believe the main suspect in the hijacked plane strikes on America on September 11th is planning a second wave of attacks against US interests at home or abroad that could come at any time, the Postadded.
"Everything seems to lean toward a domestic source," a senior government official told the newspaper. "Nothing seems to fit with an overseas terrorist type operation."
The Postreported investigators have no clear suspects and are not even certain whether there are other undetected letters that contain the potentially deadly microbe.
The Bush administration has said it does not rule out a link between the anthrax and bin Laden, although it has found no hard evidence.
Yesterday, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said investigators had determined that the pure, concentrated and highly dangerous anthrax delivered in a letter to US Senate majority leader Mr Tom Daschle "could be produced by a PhD microbiologist and a sophisticated laboratory."
"That does not rule out that it could be state-sponsored," Mr Fleischer said at a briefing. "That does not rule out that it could come from a foreign location. But it certainly does expand it beyond state sponsorship or foreign locations."
FBI director Mr Robert Mueller warned earlier this week additional terror attacks are a "distinct possibility."
But government officials do not believe the anthrax scare is a second wave of attacks by bin Laden, the paper said.
"There is not intelligence on it and it does not fit any (al Qaeda) pattern," a senior official told the paper.