- WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A
leading U.S. abortion rights group said on Monday that 90 of its clinics
and offices in at least 13 states had received envelopes containing threatening
letters and an unidentified powdery substance.
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- Planned Parenthood Federation of America said some of
the letters included messages from a group called the Army of God, a militant
anti-abortion group that has advocated violence against medical personnel
who perform abortions.
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- A spokesman for Planned Parenthood, who asked not to
be quoted by name, said the letters were delivered to the organization's
national offices and numerous local offices and medical facilities those
offices operate. Abortions are performed at many of those facilities, as
well as various health services for women.
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- The group said there have been no reported injuries and
that law enforcement officials, including FBI investigators, were conducting
tests on the powdery substance to determine whether it was anthrax bacterium
spores.
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- The news comes amid a nationwide scare involving the
potentially deadly bacteria that could be used as a biological warfare
agent.
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- The spokesman for the group said initial field test on
the substance in letters received at two locations had come back as negative
for anthrax. One of the letters had been sent to offices in Greensboro,
North Carolina. The spokesman said he did not know the location that
received the second letter that tested negative.
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- Planned Parenthood said the envelopes were mailed to
Planned Parenthood offices bearing postmarks from four cities: Atlanta;
Columbus, Ohio; and Chattanooga and Knoxville, Tennessee. The spokesman
said he believed all the letters were received on Monday. The offices and
clinics receiving the letters are located in the East Coast and Midwest,
the group said.
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- ``All of them are in the hands of various authorities
around the country. As far as we can tell, they all came today in regular
mail,'' the spokesman said.
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- Planned Parenthood said the letters had pre-printed return
addresses from the U.S. Marshall's Office and the Secret Service. Some
had a message stating, ``Time Sensitive -- Urgent Security Notice --
Open Immediately.'' The spokesman said he could not provide a copy of
any of the letters.
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- ``With this many incidents and with the similarity of
all of the letters, this is clearly a coordinated effort that was designed
to terrorize our staff and affiliates. And people have the right to know
about it,'' the spokesman said.
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- In a statement, Planned Parenthood President Gloria Feldt
said: ``It is perverse that these individuals here at home, who are themselves
terrorists by virtue of their actions, would seek to capitalize on the
events of the last days and weeks to further their own extremist agenda.
But this will not deter us from our mission of providing essential health
services to women in this nation.''
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- ``Whether a hoax or not, these are intolerable acts of
terror, and every effort must be made to apprehend the perpetrators,''
Feldt added.
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- Eric Robert Rudolph, the man charged with carrying out
the fatal bombings at Atlanta's Centennial Olympic Park during the 1996
Olympics and at a Birmingham, Alabama in 1998, among other bombings, has
been linked to the Army of God.
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- A spokeswoman for the FBI national office had no comment
on the investigation and referred calls to the agency's field office that
handles Washington. Calls to that office were not returned.
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