Al Qaeda-linked chemical weapons program in Somalia?

John Miller
John Miller

A document filed before the attack on a shopping mall in Nairobi Kenya, in a still-developing terrorism case in New York seems to confirm the long-held fear that al Qaeda is working to develop chemical weapons.

On Wednesday, CBS News obtained a document filed by the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York indicating that three men charged with being members of the al-Shabab terrorist group in Somalia had “substantial knowledge regarding an al-Shabaab research and development department that was developing chemical weapons.”

CBS News senior correspondent John Miller told “CBS This Morning” the lead defendant in the case, Mahdi Hashi, and two others were arrested in August, 2012, by African authorities while allegedly on their way to Yemen. They are charged with participating in a weapons and training program with al-Shabab over a four-year period beginning in 2008.

Hashi, who left his home in the U.K. to join the Somali group, had been part of an elite suicide bomber unit with al-Shabab. – CBSNews

Mandela’s ‘two scares’ leaked

Where does Deborah Patta get her information?
Where does Deborah Patta get her information?

Presidency spokesman Mac Maharaj yesterday refused to comment on a weekend report by US TV channel CBS that Nelson Mandela was “in distress” at one point last week.

South African journalist Deborah Patta, reporting for CBS news, said Mandela had undergone a “minor procedure” to unblock a dialysis tube on Friday.

Dialysis is the use of machines to take over kidney functioning when the organs are no longer able to work on their own.

Patta told the network that Mandela had “two scares last week”.

In one instance, “he was not responding to his [medications]” and in another “life-support machines indicated that he was in distress”.

She gave no other details.

Maharaj would say only that Mandela was in a critical but stable condition, and was responding to treatment.

Last month, in a report for the same US channel, Patta broke the story about the military ambulance, in which Mandela was being taken to hospital, breaking down on the highway from Johannesburg to Pretoria early on Saturday, June 8.

Mandela has been in hospital for over a month. – timeslive.co.za