Aggie Hoopsfan
11-28-2004, 12:58 AM
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=2027&ncid=2027&e=1&u=/chitribts/20041122/ts_chicagotrib/bloodknivescagehintatatrocities
On a counter in the apparent bomb factory were a disassembled hand grenade, rubber gloves and numerous bottles of chemicals.
"This one says potassium cyanide," said an Egyptian translator employed by the Marines. At that point Sunday afternoon, he was the only one who could talk.
Sodium cyanide, he continued reading. Sulfuric acid. Hydrochloric acid.
Eventually, Chief Warrant Officer Lee Fair, of the 1st Battalion, 8th Marines, said quietly, "Anyone that knew what they were doing could put these things together and make something very dangerous. Looks like [in the next room] they were trying to put crude weapons together."
In that room, a hooded gas mask lay beside a large glass box, as did gloves, a carton of blasting caps and beakers full of chemicals. The floor was littered with broken glass and concrete chips blown out of the walls during the attack.
In a yawning black doorway off one of the clay-walled rooms was another chilling find: a dungeon-like room, pitch-black except for the flashlights of the Marines as they focused on a bloody fingerprint and cryptic etchings.
Scratched into the clay were words:
"Put . . . "
"Kept . . . "
"Plan . . . "
" . . . to pass on."
All were written in both English and Arabic. Beside those words was one more, written only in giant Arabic loops:
"Hope."
On a counter in the apparent bomb factory were a disassembled hand grenade, rubber gloves and numerous bottles of chemicals.
"This one says potassium cyanide," said an Egyptian translator employed by the Marines. At that point Sunday afternoon, he was the only one who could talk.
Sodium cyanide, he continued reading. Sulfuric acid. Hydrochloric acid.
Eventually, Chief Warrant Officer Lee Fair, of the 1st Battalion, 8th Marines, said quietly, "Anyone that knew what they were doing could put these things together and make something very dangerous. Looks like [in the next room] they were trying to put crude weapons together."
In that room, a hooded gas mask lay beside a large glass box, as did gloves, a carton of blasting caps and beakers full of chemicals. The floor was littered with broken glass and concrete chips blown out of the walls during the attack.
In a yawning black doorway off one of the clay-walled rooms was another chilling find: a dungeon-like room, pitch-black except for the flashlights of the Marines as they focused on a bloody fingerprint and cryptic etchings.
Scratched into the clay were words:
"Put . . . "
"Kept . . . "
"Plan . . . "
" . . . to pass on."
All were written in both English and Arabic. Beside those words was one more, written only in giant Arabic loops:
"Hope."