Woman professor mailed anthrax parcel to Pak PM's office

[caption id=“attachment_200644” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“There were no reported casualties. AP Photo”] [/caption] Islamabad: A small parcel mailed to an office of the Pakistani prime minister in October contained a small amount of deadly anthrax spores, a spokesman said on Wednesday. “The security team became suspicious of the package,” Akram Shahidi, a spokesman for Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani told Reuters. “After lab testing, it was determined that this was anthrax.” There were no reported casualties. The parcel was mailed from the town of Jamshoro in the southern Pakistani province of Sindh. It was later discovered that a woman university professor from southern Sindh province sent the parcel. It could not immediately be ascertained whether the professor had been arrested. Earlier, police officials in Islamabad had said the parcel was sent to the premier’s secretariat about 20 days ago. Though the Taliban and other militant groups have carried out scores of bombings and suicide attacks in recent years, there have been no reported instances of them using letters or  parcels with poisonous materials like anthrax. In the US, anthrax mailings rattled American public just days after the 11 September 2001 attacks. US government scientist Bruce Ivins committed suicide in July 2008 as FBI agents were about to bring charges against him over the anthrax campaign, which killed five people and injured 17. Agencies